“That was pretty good” Ajax jumped as he didn’t sense the prince at all despite hearing the voice coming from within three feet of him. “Freezing up after you took out the first one was pretty bad but you recovered well.”
“I knew they were cannibals,” Ajax said as he looked at the two half eaten corpses “ I just didn’t know they would eat a fallen before dealing with a threat.”
“Despite the lacking power compared to most other curses the wendigo is one of the worst possible fates for someone to succumb to.” the prince said his usual cheery mood was gone. “It’s why curse users are so limited in all civilized places and any curse mage is kept under surveillance.”
“People can be turned into things like these?” Ajax asked, horrified.
“No, the ones created from actual people would be a lot stronger as they would still have access to all the skills they did beforehand.” the prince said. “You really should start burning the bodies before they attract all the other packs.”
Ajax didn’t need to be told twice as he quickly gathered up all the remains and tossed them in the fire. He also made sure to use one of the backup pairs of gloves he brought with him and simply tossed them in the fire as well once he was done.
The rest of the night passed quietly and Ajax managed to finish building up a strong defensive position and then managed to get a few good hours of undisturbed sleep. But once the light returned to the dungeon floor Ajax awoke. It was time to hunt.
Taking the advice of the prince, Ajax first scouted a good portion of forest around where he built his defensive base of operations. Once he found a small pack of big foots, a pack of wolves as well as some wendigo’s in the distance it was time to try using the floor to his advantage.
He carefully lit the forest ablaze, he made sure the fire wouldn’t be extending towards his own base and also started it in such a way that it would lead the pack of bigfoots into a direct confrontation with the wolves.
Lighting the forest wasn’t nearly as easy as TV shows back on earth had made it seem where one errant match could set off an inferno. Ajax had used up more than four hundred mana with his magma affinity before the fire had really taken off. But once it did it started to spread quickly. Each new tree that caught the flames would quickly explode with heat.
When the two packs came face to face an odd little staredown happened. Both the wolves and the big foots were part of the monster ecology of the floor. Under normal circumstances in the outside world the wolves would simply join the big foots in their evacuation. But inside the dungeon the creatures were much more aggressive, the only reason they hadn’t attacked each other yet was because of the small suggestion the dungeon floor also provided them with that they should work together to kill the intruders.
That stalemate was broken once the flames got a little closer and the two packs engaged. The wolves were on the losing side at the start, the much bigger size of the big foots, not to mention their more humanoid frame and tool use let them score a few strong opening attacks. The wolves however were not to be underestimated, what they lacked in individual strength they made up for in numbers. Following the strong start of the big foots the wolves were quick to respond by throwing bodies at the problem and ambushing their bigger foes.
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Ajax watched in surprise for about ten minutes as the dungeon floor was clearing itself and all he had to do was start one little fire. By this point a quarter of the wolves and big foots had died and those that were still standing were by no means in top condition. The fight however was brought to a close as each force slowly backed away recognising the others power.
That was when seven wendigos dashed into the middle all going for the corpses that littered the battlefield. Unlike their first meeting both packs were quick to charge towards the third party, even inside the dungeon the monsters had a good enough understanding of each other to know that the wendigo would just hunt them down once they finished the corpses and gained more power.
Not for the first time Ajax had a front row seat to the absolute lack of teamwork that the wendigos displayed. They weren’t a pack, no they were simply a collection that stuck together for intimidation. A wendigo would only fight if it was attacked, otherwise it would keep on feasting on the fresh meals provided.
“Can curse mages control the wendigo they create?” Ajax asked as he watched the wolves and big foots systematically take the wendigos apart.
“Not through the original curse.” the prince responded. “There are, however, examples in history of curse mages who managed to combine other control curses to achieve a similar effect.”
The second to last wendigo had its spine snapped over the knee of a bigfoot while a wolf dangled from his neck with its jaw locked. That’s when the battle took an unexpected turn. The last remaining wendigo wasn’t just a normal mob like all the rest that Ajax had faced so far. No he was a mini-boss variant that had an arch to defend.
With its stomach filled the mini-boss finally went on the the attack. It’s speed was even quicker than what Ajax could manage, though there was quite a bit to be said about the accuracy or grace of his movements. For the wolves and big boots however that didn’t matter the miniboss had to have consumed at least five corpses before it engaged and was now a menace tearing through the survivors.
Worse yet Ajax could see that the mini-boss clearly didn’t care about self preservation. It simply existed to eat, each time he would attack he would ensure to take a good size bite of his target before retreating to swallow the mouthful and attacking again.
After ten more minutes the wendigo was the only one standing as he ferociously started devouring the new corpses. That wasn’t to say that he had come on top unscathed, he had lost half of the teeth on his jaw, one of his arms all the way down from the shoulder, his left knee was bent the wrong way and both his ears had been bitten off.
Much like last time Ajax took full advantage of the wendigos unending gluttony and took out his bow. Unlike his opening shot last time, the mini-boss had good enough reflexes from the empowered curse that he managed to dodge a perfectly aimed headshot. Unfortunately for him the arrow still managed to embed itself in his stomach. The holy augment on the arrow was quick to come into conflict with the wendigo’s cursed mana as the already thin body was sent into what had to be the most violent seizure Ajax could imagine. The shaky movement was powerful enough to pop one of the mini-bosses' eyes right out of its socket before Ajax brought down his hammer and crushed his head.
“Not bad at all for your first time.” the prince said as he slowly clapped from the side. “But for next time you would do better to scout the edges of the floor closest to you before putting such a plan in action.”
A pained battlecry announced the coming of the second wave of monsters. Despite the forest fire heading away from Ajax’s position the monsters could only run away so far as the floor design allowed. Ajax now found himself with at least seven monster groups coming towards him, most of them suffering from a severe burn or two.
That was when the prince jumped into action. Ajax could have debated that he didn’t really require the prince's help, he could always outrun the monster wave and pick it off one by one. Still he had to agree that doing things that way wouldn’t have been all that good for his training.
Despite the intervention Ajax was fully focused on analyzing the way the prince fought. To say that his style was mesmerizing was an understatement. Unlike the expectation that a prince would come with back on Earth the prince’s style was in no way elegant.
While calm elegant movements of a knight or samurai were usually depicted with an underscore of classical music, the prince’s style was a clear example of heavy metal. Runes were being activated one after another from any part of his suit as he chaotically maneuvered through the beast wave killing everything that entered his range.