Ava POV
I collapsed onto the floor of the intersection in sync with the last Kobold's body. I was exhausted, we all were. We had been non-stop fighting for the last two hours and by the end everyone was running on fumes. I was casting using whatever mana I could regenerate in between hitting things with my staff. It was not a glorious combat, just a grindy slog that wore us down.
“Ok . . . I think . . . We should . . . Take a break” Lia said between heavy panting. She had been swinging her sword so much she could barely move her arms. None of us were in good shape and if we encountered anything like this, it would mean our deaths.
“Jay! Use the concealment and protection wards we bought. We need to rest without worrying about a stray rat killing one of us.” I call out to the only member who still has the ability to move his arms.
Jay had stayed mostly protected the whole time and rarely had to do much. He also was the one who kept the most mana in reserve since he couldn’t regenerate his as fast as I could in the dungeon. Jay acknowledged my orders and pulled out the premade wards we had bought back in Brahmstone weeks ago, before we had started living in the dungeon.
The wards were made by a high level mage with superior spells. We weren’t able to afford a legendary rank one, however the level difference should be enough to keep us safe in the dungeon. We could only afford three charges on the ward plates, which meant that this item was extremely limited. However its potency was not to be underestimated. I had bought them from the same man who made them for the Adventurers Guild, which means that they were good enough to be used in dungeons. I just hoped that they would work in this dungeon.
Jay finished setting them up and as the sphere of mana surrounded us I finally relaxed. I knew it was a bad habit to trust a ward this much, but I was too tired to care. I passed out from exhaustion pretty quickly after hearing and seeing the ward properly activate.
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I awoke to the sound of scratching. Opening my eyes I could thankfully still see the ward still active around me. I slowly sat up and investigated my surroundings, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw everyone was ok. I tried to figure out where the scratching noise was coming from but ended up locking eyes with Jay and he motions to talk.
“What is it Jay?” I ask after moving closer to him
“Scratching sound is from outside the ward, I think the kobold found the ward boundary and are setting up a trap around us” He says in a bland tone, like he’s delivering a report. I can tell he’s trying not to freak out about the situation.
“How much longer on the wards?” I ask.
“They’re strong wards, they will last another 6 hours if we don’t break them early.” He responds.
“Alright, I’ll wake the other’s and we’ll make a plan.” I say before moving towards the sleeping form of Lia.
“Lia, wake up we’ve got trouble” I speak into her ear while gently shaking her.
Lia’s eye’s shoot open and she sits up so fast she almost hits me. I can see her eyes scanning for threats and her hand rested upon the hilt of her blade. After confirming there’s no immediate danger she turns a questioning gaze to me.
“Listen, hear that scratching noise? Jay thinks the kobolds are making a trap around the ward” I inform her.
I don't even wait for her response, already moving on towards Hal so that I can wake him next. I can see Z starting to rouse from his sleep, his senses are the sharpest so he’ll likely wake himself in a moment. I quickly reach Hal and repeat the same thing I did for Lia.
Hal is much slower to wake, but once he hears that there’s trouble he perks up and performs a similar check to Lia’s. Once he’s satisfied that there is no immediate danger he starts quickly reattaching gear before following me to where the others are gathering.
Z had woken himself and joined Lia next to Jay, who is informing them of what he knows. Jay was the only one of us who didn’t pass out as soon as the ward was up, likely due to his lack of physical activity. His refusal to ever learn a proper melee fighting style spared him the suffering we went through, although I planned on forcing him to learn when we got back.
As Hal and I arrived at the circle I made Jay restate what he had said to the other two and then moved on to forming a plan. Our options were pretty limited considering we would likely be surrounded the minute the ward was down. However I was certain that the five of us could come up with a plan that would at least let us survive.
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Eternal Dungeon POV
I had no idea how this group was getting out of this. They had sealed themselves in a large barrier of some kind after an exhausting fight, likely to rest. This would normally be fine, however their `invisible` barrier took up most of the intersection so a kobold eventually ran into it by accident. After finding the barrier the crafty creatures started digging around and above it creating a combo pitfall/collapsing ceiling trap.
The Kobolds were about halfway done with the collapsing ceiling part and had already dug out an extra 5 feet below the bottom of the spherical barrier. I could tell that they wanted to dig it even deeper as some rock was still trapped within the bottom half of the barrier. However even if the barrier were to go down right at this moment the adventurers would find themselves in a 5 foot deep hole (from their perspective) surrounded by kobold warriors.
In another few hours the kobolds would have the full trap set up and wouldn’t even need to be present to ensure a total party kill. However my dungeon aura was detecting movement inside the barrier, I didn’t have full vision, but I could see blurry outlines through the barrier. If the adventurers exited early before the trap was fully ready then they might stand a chance at survival. That being said I’m pretty sure at least one of them will die from this.
I watch as their blurry forms begin to make a move. The Kobolds haven’t made much more progress on their trap and it looks to me like the Adventurers won’t let them finish. I watch in utter fascination as the barrier is dissipated. Its destruction allows me to get a closer look at its magical structure.
The Barrier is made of dozens of interlocking swirling sigils that each feed into another. The whole thing is only about three dozen different sigils repeated and linked in a certain pattern. I find the whole thing mesmerizing and alter my perception of time so that I can memorize every detail of it. Once it's done fully dissipating, and I have it committed to memory, I return my perception back to my standard mode and watch the fight begin. This will certainly be interesting.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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Ava POV
“Jay drop the Ward!” I shouted my order as soon as my chant was finished. As soon as the ward dissipated I felt a falling sensation before a loud crash was heard from all around us. The rock that was within our barrier had been dug around and we were now six feet below the floor level. Above us I could see some contraption on the ceiling that looked unfinished with kobolds still working on it. As we finished our fall the crash alerted all the kobolds in the room to the lack of the ward and eyes began turning our way.
We were going to go into this fight fully buffed and in protective formation that would allow us to watch all sides. With the barrier down I finished the trigger for my chant, manipulating the cast of my Mass Entangle and turning our left flank into a wall of twisting thorns and vines. At the same time Jay pulled a similar trick on our right flank by creating a wall of ice covered in spikes that had a freezing aura. With our sides covered the only two ways to get to our team were through either Lia or Hal who stood on either end of our formation or to wait for the spells to dissipate.
The Kobolds did not want to wait. As soon as our ward was down they started swarming into the hole like agitated ants. There were dozens of them and it looked like the weakest ones were the first to charge us. I could see several more armored kobolds holding javelins and slings that stayed at the top of the hole we were now in. I motioned and Z was gone, disappearing into the shadows in order to go after their ranged fighters.
As the swarm started funneling down the walls we had made I moved to support Lia and Jay moved to support Hal. We would turn ourselves into an industrial meat grinder to get through this fight. Kobolds charged right into steel and spell, only three to four of them could reasonably attack at once allowing us to keep up with the onslaught. We went all out from the start, knowing that once our pre-fight buffs started wearing off we would lose.
Jay and I slung endless spells past our frontline fighters, doing our best to slow and weaken every kobold we could. Lia and Hal moved in a never ending dance of steel and death, preventing any kobolds from passing them and killing them as fast as possible. Hal used his new abilities to create steel whips with razor edges that sprouted from his shield; these razor sharp wires would eviscerate anything that got too close. Meanwhile Lia’s longsword never stopped swinging, glowing with powerful light mana every slash sent arcs of light speeding through the lines of kobolds.
Limbs and Gore began to pile up in our kill box so I took it upon myself to try a new spell. I waited for Lia to use her strongest ability, creating a lull in the combat on our side, and started my chant. When chanting most of the words were spoken in a magical language used to communicate intention directly to mana, almost no one knew the actual meaning of the individual words to these languages making it difficult to determine what spell was cast from its chant alone. That being said, the trigger of the chant was always spoken in whatever language the user was most comfortable with, for me that was Eastern Common.
“From death comes life, Bloody Growth” I spoke in a low tone as hundreds of thorny vines and branches began to sprout from the gore and viscera of the slain. My newest spell was only recently learned after the many bloody combats I had taken part in. I knew from my maternal grandfather that Wyld-Blood magic was a specialty of the family and now that I knew this spell he might actually let me learn from him.
The vines and branches immediately started seeking out the living Kobolds, latching onto them and draining their blood. The more injured a kobold was, the more the spell would latch onto them. Bloody Growth was a Superior Rank spell that started with that as its base rank, that made it especially potent against foes of a lower rank such as these Greater kobolds. The blood soaked vines and branches quickly overtook the area, leaving only a small clearing centered around me that was free of their effect.
With our foes now massively hindered by my spell, which only grew stronger the more blood it absorbed, I decided to take a break from casting to check on Z. Lia, Hal, and Jay also started minimizing their mana usage, letting the spell do most of the work for them. I searched the area at the top of the hole for Z and eventually found him.
He was blurring in and out of combat, rapidly delivering strikes before fading back into the shadows to avoid counter attacks. I could feel the rejuvenation I had placed on him earlier still working its healing on him. I had tied off the rejuvenations’ I placed on everyone with my newest sustained casting skill which let me make any spell with a duration infinite by constantly feeding it a portion of my mana. It took a lot out of me, however the bonus regeneration from the dungeon helped to mitigate the effect somewhat.
I could tell from the look on his face and from the lack of killing blows that Z was struggling with the more skilled kobolds up top. I wanted to rush up there and help him, but knew that if I moved it would cancel my Bloody Growth spell. Instead I began a cast of Unleashed Potential to help Z blitz down his dozen opponents.
Once the spell was on him Z became a blur of black as he left red trails of blood in his wake. I could’ve used the Superior version of the spell which wouldn’t leave him exhausted afterwards, however that version also only gave a 50% boost as opposed to a 100% boost. If I could level up the spell past 0 then it would improve more, however that was impossible until I ranked my class up to Superior.
With his now doubled stats, Z was able to quickly land killing blows on each of the kobold’s. He cut it quite close at the end, using the last three seconds of Unleashed Potential to jump to where our party was at the center of my spell. Hal managed to catch him and Z promptly passed out from exhaustion. With the ranged fighters all dead we left Z in the center of our formation and slowly whittled down the rest of the monsters as they reached us through my Bloody Growth.
After two hours enough of them had died that the rest all retreated, leaving us alone. Without fresh blood to sustain it my Bloody Growth spell quickly withered away and died. Without its protection I quickly rallied the group and picked up Z so we could find a safe place to camp. It took us only half an hour of walking to find a tunnel that led to the Drop Shaft. Lia cleared us out a space on one of the overhangs to camp out on and I handed off Z to Hal so that I could help Jay set up a barrier. Once our camp was made we settled in to rest, none of us were high on mana after that fight and we needed Z to recover from the exhaustion before we could continue.
As we settled in I looked over at the bridge leading further down, we were at the very end of the fifth layer of this place. I knew we would likely be facing a boss soon and my mind was kept awake making endless plans for fighting the unknown boss. I didn’t know what we would face, I only knew that I had to be ready.
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Eternal Dungeon POV
This group was a hell of alot better than most of the others. I suppose it made sense, all the groups that had at least one Superior Ranked member were incredibly competent. I just didn’t realize they were good enough to escape that fight relatively unscathed. If it wasn’t for that self sustaining blood magic there’s no way they all would’ve survived that fight, I was certain of at least that much.
Well, in the end it didn’t matter all that much. The first five layers of this floor, also known as The Lost Mines, were the less dangerous half of it. The Wyrmscale Caverns were filled with powerful Greater Rank creatures, as well as a few Superior Rank ones. Even if they manage to beat the Kobold Overseer boss there’s no way they’ll make it to The Wyrm of Duality. I was confident that this floor would take awhile to be beaten, even if they tried to overpower it with levels.
I turned my attention away from my third floor and back towards my fourth where things were rapidly developing. I planned on giving the floor a checkup and then I would open it to adventurers. I also needed to add some quests to encourage people to try a little harder at beating the goblin village. Perhaps offering a full set of class gear as the first conquer reward would get them moving?