Chapter 38

Earth
Hillside Lake Dungeon, Ontario
August 17, 2019
14:48 EDT
(Sonja)

“Fuck, that guy hits hard,” Mason said, rubbing the side of his face. He had taken his helmet off and had a nice cut on his cheek.

[Why didn’t you have Mana Shield up?] Jonathan asked. [It would’ve saved you some pain.]

“What do you mean?! That was through Mana Shield! My mana regen isn’t as insane as yours and I ran out while I was fighting the last warrior,” he replied, standing back up and putting his helmet back on.

“I’m surprised nothing is broken, especially since you got hit by a metal arm. What skill was that anyways? Or was it a skill unique to the boss?”

“It’s a perk, actually,” Ben replied, answering my question. “Metal Skin. Whenever someone with the perk takes physical damage from someone, they become near-immune to further physical damage for a short time. It does drain a lot of mana whenever it activates and the same person can’t trigger the ability more than every thirty-seconds or so. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be triggered in quick succession. Mason triggered it and then you did, putting it on cooldown for both of you. It was probably already on cooldown for Jonathan, so it didn’t activate when he thrust his sword through the boss’ back.”

“Weak to fire, right?”

“And frost,” Ben said, nodding.

“It doesn’t sound like a particularly good perk if you have to take physical damage to activate it,” Anja said.

[I disagree, ] Jonathan sent, still being unable to speak in his dragonkin form. [It seemed like Metal Skin was active for about five seconds, which is five seconds where you wouldn’t have to worry about getting hit. Not to mention the fact that it probably allows someone to hit harder using their fists or arms, as Mason can probably attest to.]

“Piss off!” Mason said, turning and walking over to the chest to see what was in it.

The rest of us laughed, Jonathan’s coming out as a deeper, more gravelly laugh, before following him. Except for Ben, that is, who went around collecting all the Mana Gems that were left behind by the boss’ minions. Mason took the sack out of his storage, proceeding to gather the crystals before bending down to collect something else.

He held his hand out, palm up showing two Tier E Skill Gems. Jonathan couldn’t manipulate the strings of the small pouch very well, so he handed it to me. I dropped the two Skill Gems into it, realizing we had quite a few to sort through after, before looking up with a smile and handing it back to him.

Mason didn’t wait and bent down to grab the remaining items in the chest. When he had them, he turned around and showed them to us. The first looked like a well-made pair of bracers, made out of steel or some other steel-like material for the outside, while having leather on the inside to provide some padding. The second was a plain silver ring, with no distinguishing features.

Seeing that Jonathan wasn’t going to switch back to his human form like he usually did when we were sorting out items, Mason started handing them around so everyone could ‘see’ the stats on them. He handed them over to Anja who passed them on to me after a few moments. I took a quick look before passing them along as well.

High Chieftain’s Armguards

+10 Strength, Agility or Intellect, whichever is highest

+8 Constitution

5% Magical Damage Reduction

Increases your mana regeneration by 10% of your highest stat. This is added after any other calculations.

Lesser Enchanted Silver Band
Uncommon

+8 Intellect

+8 Endurance

10% increased Spell Damage

Both were pretty good items, but felt lacking compared to the last few items we’d received. My bow is incredible, as is the halberd that Mason received, though perhaps that’s the difference between an epic item and a rare one. I was eyeing the bracers more than the ring, but it wasn’t bad. Intellect always helps, especially when it comes to hitting the one hundred Intellect requirement to finally be able to cast Summon Air Elemental. I would undoubtedly have competition for either.

Jonathan held the two items in his hands, almost spacing out before transferring the ring to the hand holding the bracers. His phone appeared in his hand a second later, and he turned towards me.

[Mind handling the rolling for me?] he asked. [I don’t wanna shift back to my human form and then switch back.]

“Sure,” I replied with a nod, accepting his phone. I opened up the team app and tapped on the button to take me to the roll screen before taking out my own and doing the same. I looked around and saw that everyone was looking at me with their own phone out, causing me to chuckle and look back up to Jonathan. “Which one are we doing first?”

[The bracers. I’ll be passing on them.]

“Okay,” I said, tapping the button to initiate the roll before hitting the pass button on his and the roll button on mine.

It didn’t take long for the roles to come in. Anja won with a 56 while no one else even broke 25.

“Looks like Anja is the winner. Grats, sis!”

“Thanks!” she replied, walking up to Jonathan and accepting the bracers. They disappeared almost as soon as she picked them up, all of us knowing that she had put them into the dimensional storage of her suit.

[Grats, Anja!] Jonathan said. [Okay, let’s do the ring. I’ll be participating in the roll this time.]

“Got it,” I said, hitting the reset button and then initiating another roll. I hit the roll button on both of our respective phones, and it seemed like the result came in instantly.

“Damn, nice roll, Ben!” Mason said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Jonathan looked at me, and I nodded, so he held out his hand so Ben could receive the ring. He took it and looked at it closely before it disappeared as well.

“Thanks, guys.” Ben said.

[What was the roll, anyways?] Jonathan asked.

“A 97,” I replied as I exited the app on his phone and then handed it back to him. “Mason was the second highest with 78, and then you were at 63. Anja and I were well below that.”

[I see. Anyways, I’ve got something to show you guys before we continue.] he said.

We all looked up at him expectantly. When he saw he had our attention, he turned in place so he was facing away from us. Nothing happened, but after a moment we saw him breathe in. A moment later, he leaned forward and exhaled that air, only it wasn’t air anymore. He breathed a jet of flame that reached twenty feet away before dissipating, but even behind him we could feel the heat. He was able to maintain the jet of flame for a good ten seconds or so before stopping, at which point he turned back to us, a big toothy grin on his face.

“No freaking way!” Mason exclaimed. “When the hell did you learn to do that?!”

[During the fight with the boss. He punched me in the stomach knocking the wind out of me, but there was also a small jet of flame at the end. It felt weird, and things suddenly clicked after that. Now I can use it at will, though it probably won’t help much in this dungeon. I’m not even sure why breathing in air is necessary, since the flame is generated with mana. It’s something to ask Selalea about, I suppose.]

“That is interesting. Everyone always thought that dragons had a sac containing a highly-flammable substance, but it looks like that isn’t the case. Just make sure I’m not anywhere near you when you learn how to breath acid, yeah?”

[You got it, ] he said with another one of those gravelly laughs. [Let’s get going, yeah?]

We decided we’d been standing around too long, so we continued down to the sixth floor where the dungeon took on a more dungeon-y feel. Rather than the cavern-like first five floors, the sixth looked like a man-made structure. Whether they were or not, no one knew, though I really doubted it. Not if there were dungeons similar to this one many other planets through the galaxy.

Ben was leading the way with his two skeletons in the lead, with me right beside him keeping an eye out for traps. It was a good opportunity to level up the abilities since they didn’t die too often. We disarmed two traps while walking down a long corridor with one of them being a spiked pit trap. The second trap we had triggered had stumped us, because nothing happened. We stood around and waited for a solid minute, afraid that something might happen if we moved. Ben finally had his remaining skeleton walk forward, and we were relieved that nothing happened.

[Move!] Anja shouted suddenly after we turned a corner.

Ben’s Mana Shield instantly flared up and we turned around. Mason was on the floor, his back up against one of the walls while Anja had her katana in her hand. Blood was dripping off the blade, and there was a headless kobold at her feet. A female one, at that, wielding a dagger in each hand and wearing leather armor that covered her from head to toe.

Before we could register anything, she disappeared into smoke and there was a gurgling sound from behind me. I turned again and stood face to face with another kobold, a dagger sticking through her neck and blood on her lips. Anja stood behind her, an angry look on her face. Ripping the dagger out, she pushed the dead kobold to the side.

[Umm ... what just happened?] Jonathan asked.

[Kobold Assassins happened, I think, ] Ben answered.

[I’ve gotten to the point where I can keep Precognition active for about three seconds or so before deactivating it for two and reactivating it again, ] my sister said as she wiped her bloody weapons on the kobold in front of her. [It allows me to make sure the effect is always active, and keeps my mana full. The two of them were invisible even when they were about to strike, but I saw what was going to happen, so I struck where they were.]

[Shit, I guess I’ll be using Precognition as well, ] Jonathan said. [Ben, Sonja, you’ll stay in the front, Anja and Mason in the middle, and I’ll follow after you. If anymore appear, you take care of the ones in the front and I’ll take care of the ones in the back.]

[Works for me, ] Anja said.

Mason picked up the two Mana Crystal Shards and we continued on our way. We didn’t come across anymore Kobold Assassins, but we did come across our first room. It was very similar to the chambers on the previous floors, but actually seemed quite a bit easier than the fifth floor. There weren’t any elites, either, which made it super easy.

We cleared the room pretty quickly before continuing, and came across multiple traps on our way down the hallway. There was another one that seemed like a dud, but a few minutes after triggering the trap, we were ambushed by Kobold Assassins, again. Jonathan dealt with two that came from behind, while Anja launched an Ice Shard over my shoulder that hit the one that attacked from the front. It wasn’t enough to kill it, but it did give me a target to aim at.

That’s the way the next few rooms, and floors went, it turned out. We would get ambushed when going between chambers, but we always dealt with the assassins quickly. In rooms, would be a large group of kobolds waiting for us. There were no assassins mixed in, fortunately, so they died just as quickly.

We ended up clearing three floors before something changed, but that wasn’t to say that those three floors weren’t boring. We determined that those ‘dud’ traps were ones that spawned the assassins, having been able to skip a few groups of assassins by stepping over the trigger plate rather than getting one of the skeletons to stand on it. We even got a couple of drops, those being uncommon pants, while also getting another Tier-D Skill Gem to add to the pile. We opted to hold off on handing out the pants, deciding to wait until we killed the boss on the tenth floor, instead. That would give us three items to roll off rather than just the two.

The ninth floor was where things got interesting. Each room was comprised of a smaller number of kobolds, though they were all elites, and there were Elite Kobold Assassins mixed in as well. They were visible when we entered the room, but soon turned invisible when they noticed us. It caught us off guard at first, though we adapted to that pretty quickly.

Jonathan, Mason and Ben were nigh-invulnerable against the Assassins, which meant that they could only really attack my sister and I. The problem with that was that Anja was able to see their attacks before they even happened, so she was able to deal with them on her own, or warn me to get away. Ride the Lightning was very good for that, having a pretty short cooldown while also being cheap on the mana. It allowed me to disappear, and then Anja would appear right behind it and either cut off its head using her katana or stab it through the back with one of her many other weapons.

We always killed the Elite Kobold Shaman and an Elite version of a Kobold Chieftain whenever we entered a room, knowing that while it would enrage the other kobolds, it would make it a lot easier when the kobolds weren’t getting healed. It also allowed Jonathan to be engaged in the fight from the start rather than have to keep the chieftain busy. In the second room, Jonathan had actually used Blink to appear behind the shaman and closed his hand over its head before proceeding to squeeze, popping the kobold’s head like a melon.

It was extremely effective, while also being extremely disgusting, something we all agreed on after clearing the room. He didn’t do it again, as the first time he had to take a minute to wash all the blood off his hands before we continued. Instead, he went with a neat beheading before continuing on to the chieftain. The ninth floor was also quite short, only having four rooms and none of those containing a floor boss, which was surprising, but not unwelcome.

[Shit, a Disorienting Aura, ] Ben sent when he spotted one of his markers indicating we had been here before.

[Seems par for the course, ] Jonathan said, looking up at the ceiling. [Too bad it’s not a labyrinth or I could fly up and see where we need to go.]

[That would be nice, ] Ben said, continuing to lead us.

He actually had three skeletons now, two warriors and an archer, Raise Skeletal Warrior having hit rank three about halfway through the previous floor. It allowed us to go quite a bit quicker, as his skeletons didn’t need to be summoned as often.

Having turned left at the first intersection, we turned right so we would head into another direction. It proved to be the right one, as we soon came up to a small room with a chest in the middle. There was no glowing aura around it indicating it was a trap, so I didn’t need to fire an arrow at it. Mason opened it up, finding a Tier E Skill Gem, as well as the usual Mana Crystal Shards. After gathering everything up, we continued, picking one of the two paths at random.

There were five ambushes by Elite Kobold Assassins before we reached a room containing ten elite Kobolds, as well as a Kobold High Chieftain. We went all out on the fight, with Jonathan taking out the shaman as quickly as he could before focusing on the High Chieftain next. Anja’s job was to deal with the three assassins, while Ben and I helped Mason out with the archers.

Trying a new strategy, we took out the archers as soon as possible, because it was easier to avoid attacks from a warrior that had to run around, rather than an archer who could stay stationary and firing off arrows without a care in the world. It worked rather well, having killed all three archers within the first minute of the fight and then turning to deal with the very pissed off warriors.

It ended up being quite a bit easier than the boss on the fifth floor, even with the assassins added into the mix. We couldn’t tell if it was because of our experience or because they were easier, but it was probably a mix of the two. The High Chieftain didn’t have Metal Skin as the boss did, so that made him quite a bit easier to deal with when all three arrows found their mark, rather than one hitting and the two just bouncing off.

After that, it was just a matter of navigating the maze. That was the annoying part, having taken us nearly forty minutes to finally make it to the decorated doors that lead to the boss room. The door was quite large, showing a large kobold-looking creature, though there were some noticeable differences. It actually looked more like a dragon than a kobold, having wings on its back and having two swept back horns sprouting from its head.

Deciding to see what we were in for, we opened up the doors and stepped in. We were getting used to the darkness, so we walked forward until the doors slammed shut us and the lights came on. The room was massive, having what looked like perches all around the room. The one that caught our attention was the one directly opposite the entrance, a grey creature standing up and beating its large wings. It roared before jumping into the air and gliding down into the middle of the room.

It looked to be just as big, if not a bit bigger than Jonathan was in his Seotross form, sporting some wicked looking claws and what looked like very thick scales. There were jagged areas on its forearms and its elbow, and it had some very sharp teeth. It looked incredibly muscular, and it made me wonder how such a large creature could fly. There was no way it’s wings would be able to lift its weight, which meant that the only possibility was magic.

[If I’m right, that’s a Dragonewt, though it’s quite a bit smaller than I was expecting. Usually you don’t see them until level fifty or so. I’ve never seen a grey one, either. Usually they’re more colorful.]

[Dragonewt, huh?] Jonathan said. [What can you tell us about them?]

[Well they can fly, obviously, so get ready for it to fly around. I’m pretty sure it’ll also be able to breathe fire, but I’m not entirely sure. Besides that, it’s incredibly strong as you can see, and he should be pretty fast as well. I have no clue what type of abilities he’ll have.]

[I could probably take care of it pretty quickly if I changed forms again. What do you guys say?]

[Nah, let’s do it as we are. Ben and I can both summon our elementals and then we can go in. Maybe this guy will actually put up a challenge, ] Mason said.

[I don’t think there is much point in Ben summoning his, so we’ll go in as soon as you’ve summoned yours.]

[Oh, right, the fire resistance thing. Alright, gimme a minute, ] Mason replied as he began summoning his earth elemental.

Ben also began casting something at the same time, though the cast times were much shorter. By the time Mason’s earth elemental was summoned, there were two Skeletal Archers and a Skeletal Warrior standing in front of Ben. He hadn’t used them before on a boss fight so I was curious to see how it would go.

Seeing that everyone was ready, Jonathan turned and extended his spear and his cutlass before proceeding to walk towards the boss. Normally we all ran in, but he seemed like he wanted to slow it down a little. It seemed to be a good choice as well, since the boss took a big breath as soon as we walked past a certain point.

Jonathan reacted instantly, stopping and taking a breath of his own. Mason and Ben put up Mana Shield, while Anja and I made sure to spread out. Moments later, the boss breathed out a jet of flame that traveled the hundred foot distance pretty quickly, only to meet Jonathan’s own fire breathe about thirty feet away from him.

It looked like he wasn’t able to breathe it any further just yet, but his breath weapon was easily strong enough to hold up to the dragonewt’s. The duel must have lasted for at least thirty seconds before both of them stopped, Jonathan coughing a little at the end. There wasn’t any time to recover, however, because the boss immediately started running forward, using a quick beat of his wings to increase his speed.

Jonathan met him halfway, his spear activating and reaching across the distance when they got close enough, the spear impaling the boss’ waist. Seeming to not even feel the attack, he began swinging one of his arms. The backhand connected with Jonathan, who got Mana Shield up before the strike even hit, but promptly flared up and fell, sending Jonathan flying a short distance.

That triggered the rest of us to attack. A red aura encompassed my hands, increasing the speed at which I would be able to fire off arrows. Wanting to increase that further, I activated Rapid Fire just as the first arrow appeared in my hand. I quickly pulled the bowstring back, loosing a Siphoning Shot followed immediately followed immediately afterwards by Triple Shot. The three arrows crossed the distance in an instant. The third arrow actually bounced off his chest, though the other three found their mark.

It didn’t seem like they did any damage, but it did get his attention. Turning towards me, he backhanded the earth elemental in his way and then charged towards me. I fired a Tethering Shot along his path to see what would happen before activating Ride the Lightning so I could get away. Instead of traveling quickly to my left or my right, I decided to travel directly towards the boss, to see if lightning had any effect on him.