The Demon in charge of the square was a Shadow Caster that used dark affinity magic. Frederica was able to assassinate it after Penelope dealt with the lone rat. Once the Demon and rat were down, they utilized their strategy of focusing two on a monster and finished the fight in much better shape.
The enchanted item they looted was a pair of pants that gave a point of Magic and the
7C was led by a Shadow Knight in black armor. It also had four rats and a single monkey. Frederica used her stealth to wound the monkey, then Ula finished it off. The rats tried to spread out to swamp Marlow, which forced Penelope to stand back to back with the older man, careful to stay close but not touch. Dawson went to help the melee group with the enemy Tank, but she was able to cast out of her wand and left hand with Jeru on watch.
The Black Belt had a point of Defense on it, but Oakley had the named belt, so they gave it to Dawson. The Poison Mage hit level ten in the square, giving him the same mastery in his chosen element like the others had received.
The group fell into a rhythm as they adapted to the other party members' techniques. No one was going to learn a new skill until they cleared the first floor, which allowed them to expect the response that a party member would have.
They managed to get the rooms cleared down to just under thirty minutes, though with the downtime in between to recover their mana and stamina, the squares were taking about thirty-five minutes.
They’d started at seven, and they finished Column 7 just after one in the afternoon.
Penelope sat at her isolated spot in 5A and ate her meal of roasted lizard. There hadn’t been any upgrades for her in the items that they’d looted, leaving her to still lacking an enchanted belt or helmet.
“Well.” Jeru sat down across from her. “Thirty more squares to go in just under forty-three hours. When you take out eight hours for sleeping and thirty minutes to eat…” His voice trailed off as Penelope’s mind did the math for him.
“It’s only thirty if you count the boss room, and the last eight hours don’t really matter because the barrier is coming down at the end of the boss fight either way, so we could just let time wind down and then we’d have the entire floor to fight it on.” She leaned against the outer wall of the Dungeon, the party in full view. Judah was walking towards her.
“Ah, the puppy is back.” The Elf chuckled.
“Not helping…” Penelope growled under her breath.
“Penelope! Great news!” The young man was running up to her with a huge smile on his face. “Dawson said he’s done for the day, and when Grandma Ula started arguing with him, he said he was done, took off his armor, and walked away!” His face beamed. “I get to fight with you now!”
Penelope hid her snide comment in a cough. Dawson was always getting fed up with fighting. She was surprised it had taken him this long to call it quits. “They gave you all of his gear?”
“Yep!” Judah was all smiles. “Now I get to fight next to you!”
“Puppy lovin’, happened so fa-ast.” Jeru started singing in her mind. “Puppy lovin’, had me a bla-ast.”
You’re not helping. Penelope let the growl in her throat mix with her thoughts. It’s not even summer and how do you know… Penelope answered her question with the response that he’d given every time. She smiled at the young man. “Are they ready for us to start?”
The black-haired man nodded. “Grandma Ula said that we need to start soon!”
Penelope stood up. “Then we should head over to 8A.”
The rest of the party started moving and reached the square at about the same time.
Ula cleared her throat as she looked at the other five people. “I know you’re tired, but we’re not done yet.” The tanned woman pointed at the portal to the south. “There are hundreds of people on the other side of that portal that are level one.” She turned back north. “You’ve seen how much trouble we’ve had and how close it’s gotten and we’re…” Her eyes drifted over Judah. “Almost all of us are level ten. Could you imagine what would have happened to us if we tried to fight these monsters at the beginning without any gear?”
Frederica looked bored, but the older woman had the three men’s full attention.
“We’re going to do the A row so we can gauge how much time we’re going to need for each room.” She nodded at 8A, then looked at Penelope. “Does anyone have any insights?”
Penelope cast the information about the monsters to the other party members.
“On the Hunt says that they can detect people in stealth.” Penelope closed her eyes. “We won’t be able to rely on Frederica to assassinate the Demons on that column.
Ula nodded. “The Demon doesn’t have a weapon, so it’s a Debuffer or Healer.” She took a deep breath. “We’ll approach it like we do after Frederica is out of stealth. She’s with me dealing with what comes at Oakley, while our ranged people cover Marlow and deal with anything that goes after him.”
“It looked like both of these monsters are melee, so..." The tanned grandmother looked at Judah. “Make sure you aren’t throwing spells into people. We’ll try to stay out of your way, but don’t get reckless.” She looked around. “Any questions?”
Everyone shook their heads.
Ula waved for Oakley to go. “Let’s do it!”
Oakley walked into the square with the other two women and let out a yell. As soon as the three of them were about ten feet inside, the three magic-users walked in.
Penelope twisted her wand. “Light Torrent!”
The three wolves grouped together; their shoulders were over four feet off the ground, making them the size of a smaller horse. The canine’s thick gray fur turned metallic as the Shadow Buffer cast a spell on them. The lead one released a howl that sent ice down Penelope’s veins.
Despite the fear that was accelerating her heart, she couldn’t tear her eyes off of it, even though she knew that the snakes were each moving towards them along the outer edges of her range.
The monstrosities were three feet wide and over ten feet long. The horns pointing off the back of their skulls made them look like they had a more Dragon-shaped face than a serpent one. Their teeth also gave that impression as the jaw full of sharp predator’s teeth hungered to tear into something. The monster’s dark, rainbow scales turned silver as the Demon’s spell began to affect them as well.
“FOCUS!” Jeru’s voice snapped her out of the frozen stupor.
Penelope blinked, then pointed her wand at the lead wolf. Oakley was busy trying to handle all three of the monsters that were pouncing on him and he needed help.
“LIGHT TORRENT!”
The four
Penelope directed the other two to hit each of the other two wolves in between the eyes. They whimpered as the impact broke their attacks.
“ULA!” Marlow pulled his crossbows off his hips and pointed the weapons.
Penelope turned and saw what he was screaming about. One of the snakes had coiled around their leader. The older woman was struggling to keep its mouth from closing over her head.
“Keep healing her!” Penelope ran past the Healer, pushing the crossbow in his right hand down. “I’ll get her! Light Torrent!”
A green glow covered the restrained woman while four balls of light slammed into the monster holding her.
The snake uncoiled, throwing Ula across the floor as it did. Its slitted eyes locked onto Penelope and promised death as the serpent wove across the floor, mouth wide open.
“Light Beam!” She aimed down the monster’s throat. She’d expected the beam to cut out the other side, but the snake collapsed like an accordion, its head ending up sideways as it slid to a stop.
Penelope canceled the spell and looked around to see who needed her help next. Ula was standing next to Marlow, catching her breath. Judah was summoning an eruption of fire from the ground, which looked impressive and would inflict a lot of damage if he ever hit anything with it. The you man hadn’t connected with anything, but it was forcing one of the smaller wolves to retreat. Oakley was doing a better job of weathering the pair of wolves and Frederica had the other snake trying to grab her while she sliced at it with her shadow-covered daggers.
Penelope found the Shadow Buffer in the middle of it, its glowing silver eyes were focused on Judah even though it was casting a buff spell to fix the damage to the protection on the lead wolf.
Penelope ran to the west side of the square, where Judah had gone too far from the rest of the group. When she got closer, she realized that the wolf wasn’t acting scared; instead, it was happily leading him away from the group.
“Judah! Get back here!” Penelope pointed her wand towards the Demon. “Light Beam!”
A metal plate formed in front of the Demon, forcing Penelope to cancel the spell. The little bit of light that she had released bounced off the metal and shot towards Oakley. It wasn’t much, so when it hit his shield, he didn’t even flinch, taking it like it had been just another attack from the wolves.
“Light Torrent!” Penelope kept her wand pointed at the Demon.
The four balls shot through the distance between them.
A ring of metal shards appeared around the Demon. The sound that escaped the Shadow Buffer resembled gravel filling a metal bucket more than a laugh, but the enjoyment was unmistakable.
“Light Torrent!” Penelope sent the next four towards the wolf, leading Judah away. “Light Torrent!” She focused the next cluster at the leader.
The second attack was half-hearted as she blasted the wolf, knocking it on its side. Judah took the opportunity to raise another pair of pillars out of the ground, the second one succeeding in melting a hole through the middle of the prone monster.
ROAR!
Penelope just shook her head as the Demon turned its full attention to her.
“The fight is over.” She sighed as she started backing up to get out of range of the incoming metal shards.
Frederica plunged both of her daggers into the Demon’s neck, reducing it to a pile of items. Ula stood over the snake, her warhammer resting in the monster’s caved-in head. The only monster still alive. It attacked Oakley with the fervor of a desperate animal, but the stone-skinned man held his ground.
“FIRE—!”
“HEY!” Penelope stepped in between Judah and the last monster. “You got one; don’t shoot into your allies!” She forced the tip of his staff down. “Save your mana. We’re going again once we catch our breath.”
The look of disappointment vanished from his face as fast as it had appeared. “You saw that, right? I got one! You saw me right?”
“Yeah.” Penelope sighed. “But you were about to cast a spell on allies.”
“But I can aim—!”
“No!” She tapped him on the head with her wand. “There was a very specific rule about you casting spells in the direction of people again.” She pointed at the almost dozen scorch marks on the stone floor. “You can’t hit anything that’s on its feet, and you still recover mana too slowly.”
The young man lowered his head. “Sorry.”
Penelope didn’t know what else to say but took the barrier falling as a good reason to leave. “Just do better next time and try not to get so caught up in the fight that you forget your role.”
She left the downcast man as she walked east towards the next room.
“You’re not going to point out how that wolf was leading him away to kill him?” Jeru appeared in front of her and cast a disapproving gaze at the sulking man.
Penelope shook her head. I’ll keep an eye on him in the next one. No reason to destroy his confidence by taking the win away.
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