Dungeon Team Nightshade

This job was a walk in the park for us. Exterminate all the monsters on the second floor, and then monitor the situation for three days? We may have been the tenth best dungeon team in the guild, but even we didn't get the chance to let loose like this very often.

The Guild Head was very specific though, maybe even a little bit desperate. I'd personally been tempted to try and milk a bit more money out of 'em, but Mary quickly put a stop to that, by 'accidentally' summoning a Gods-damned firebolt up my ass. Damn woman never let me have any fun.

Speaking of Mary, she was currently setting a group of bone pricks on fire. These ones were simple and stupid. No weapons, no armor, no nothing. I didn't mind that we got stuck with clearing out one of the less populated sections, considering that whoever got stuck with the big job would have to do the most work. I figured they'd probably get a bit of extra coin, but so long as I wasn't risking my neck, I wouldn't bother 'em. Easy coin would almost always certainly be the best coin.

That was why when Johnathan, our defensive guardian, got hit in the neck by a lucky arrow, I had brought out a scroll of [Hellfire] and immediately tore it, sending a massive jet of flame down the hallway, to incinerate whatever made the lucky shot, while David, our cleric, healed the wound while simultaneously extracting the arrow. The man was a buzzkill most of the time, never wanting to share a drink or gamble, but I had to admit, he was damn good at what he did. The scroll itself wasn't terribly expensive, as we'd discovered it and immediately bound one of Mary's medium tier spells to it. The only cost for doing so was the reagents.

As the ranger of the group, I was on edge, not because of the lucky arrow, but because there was an arrow to begin with. On closer inspection, I found that it was old, poor quality, rusted, and by far one of the worst arrows I'd seen in a very long time. The last time was from an arrow made with solid bone, from the corpse of a Behemoth on floor twenty three. The damn thing broke before I got a chance to inspect it, and this arrow wasn't much different, already in several pieces on the ground.

If it wasn't something a skeleton would use, I'd let myself die of alcohol poisoning.

"Didn't they say the skellies were only using bones for weapons?" I kept my tone calm, but my mind was starting to whirl with the notion that we could be attacked from any direction, just like Johnathan had been.

"Yes, they did. What are you thinking, Nick?" Mary piped up, her eyes on the still burning hallway, shadows flickering in the firelight.

"A skeleton using a bow and arrow, and managing to hit Johnathan on the first shot, through a miniscule crack in between his helmet and his torso covered in full plate? I don't trust this. This shouldn't be happening on the second floor. The eighth or lower, I'd expect things like this. Not the second." I had my bow strung, and in my hand now. Even if I couldn't see well in the dark, I'd long since picked up a skill for it, although having other lights made it harder to use.

"[Nightvision]."

My vision turned to several varying shades of gray, and a bit of a ways away I caught a flicker of movement past the burning hall. From what I managed to glimpse from that alone, I could tell that whatever I'd sent the scroll at, wasn't dead. Furthermore, it was wearing old, ragged leather armor.

Also, it hadn't continued firing at us. It had moved.

The fact that a single skeleton was showing any hint of knowledge about tactics, about attacking and retreating, was a bit unnerving. Most of the time, they just ran up to you, attempting to scratch at your face, or punching uselessly at your armor. For a skeleton to have acquired armor and a weapon... Something had to be backing it for that level of intelligence.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I don't like this. We should be able to handle it, but I really don't like the thought of a stronger skeleton than what the other groups might be facing. We should hurry up and take care of everything in this area." I had nocked an arrow to the bowstring, and was scanning the other halls, trying to catch a glimpse of any other archers in the dark. None appeared.

Soon after, Johnathan was back on his feet, and the hall I'd burned was just burned out enough that we could travel through it.

Following it down, I managed to pick up the already faint footprints that had been left behind by the undead archer. "It learned [Stealth] as well. Be on your guard."

Taking our time, we followed the footprints of the skeleton. Occasionally an arrow was shot at us, but Johnathan was ready at this point, and they all shattered harmlessly against his shield. Honestly, I'd always been a little astonished that he could even lift it, since it was less of a shield, and more of a solid sheet of steel. Granted, I'd never tell him that.

It took awhile, but eventually we found more of the annoying bastards as we followed the first. It wasn't a bad attempt, as it even tried to mix its own footprints up with those of other skeletons, but eventually we were at a point where arrows were bombarding the wall next to us, as we were pressed up against it with Johnathan up front, his shield raised. Every now and then I took a potshot, and one of the damn things would fall to the ground, one of my arrows being more than enough to bring them down in a single shot.

Soon, only two of the archers remained, and they scrambled into a hole in the wall, leaving their fallen comrades behind. Johnathan stepped forward, plugging the hole with his shield, except for a miniscule crack at the very top.

"How much do you want to bet that the source of these little shits is behind the crack in this wall?" I leaned against the wall at this point, looking at Johnathan, who looked back at me. Even under the helmet, I could tell he had a slight grin on his face. His expressions were almost audible sometimes.

"Five gold coins that they aren't." He spoke, his deep voice rumbling and ringing inside his helmet.

"Fine, I'll raise you. Ten gold says they are." I winked at him. That money was as good as mine.

"Men..." Mary had already stepped back, her ruby red staff having been conjured from thin air.

I snorted in response, before nudging the big guy to step aside. "Save us the trouble, and hit it with a [Hellfire] if you would be so kind." As Johnathan stepped away from the crack in the wall, taking his shield with him, I did the same.

Soon Mary was waving her staff around, doing whatever incantation she needed to make the same fire I'd used earlier. This was why I liked scrolls. They were quick, easy, and to the point. None of the fancy wand or staff waving, or muttering of nonsensical words. Just point, tear, done.

About roughly five seconds later, she pointed her staff forward, and an incredible stream of really hot fire blew right by me, and into the hole in the wall, enveloping it and anything inside in flame.

After that, we waited for about ten minutes for the fire to be totally done burning, and for any potential survivors to come out.

Naturally, I drew the short straw, and had to crawl through first. On the bright side, once I was on the other side, I found that everything had been turned into nice, crispy ashes. The smell of burned meat lingered in the air, and I thought that maybe one of them had been a zombie. That wouldn't have surprised me, since they were the most likely to develop intelligence among the lesser undead.

Soon we were all inside the room, except for Johnathan, who stayed crouched just inside the crack in the wall, his shield facing outward just in case something was waiting for us when we came back out. Mary seemed convinced, and David used a [Purify] to cleanse the room of both the ash, and any potential spirits that he believed needed to be sent to the afterlife. I was just glad I wouldn't be breathing in any of the ashes of the dead.

After everyone made their confirmations, we went back to clearing our area, and luckily, we didn't run into any more of the armored bastards. If we had, I'd have grown a bit more concerned. From that point onward, our job was smooth sailing, and we dispatched various groups of the skellies, one by one, until finally, several hours later, and deep into the night, we had finished off the last one.

We had ended up patrolling the same section at least four times, wiping out any of the undead we came across. While it definitely wasn't a difficult mission, it was most certainly an annoying one, since we'd had to walk around so much in the middle of the night.

I was looking forward to my comfortable bed back in the house I'd recently bought with my hard earned coin. I would let the others deal with reporting what we'd discovered along the way.

Still, it was definitely the easiest money I'd made all week, and all it costed me was a near-free scroll of [Hellfire], and a few extra hours of my sleep. It was well worth it.