Dominic dodged out of the way of the whip-like tail which struck at him, cursing as he was struck by a stone from above. A moment later, he had to leap again, a snake burying its fangs into the ground where he had been just a moment before.
He got his own back on the snake in the next instant, crunching through its neck and spine without much issue. The snake went limp and a notification flashed up which Dominic quickly dismissed.
Another notification flashed up a moment later and the body of the alien tree-crawler thumped down next to him – a slon, apparently. He’d have called it a ‘sloth’ except that it was much faster and had a weasel-like head.
‘Thanks,’ he sent to Sekhmet. She replied back with wordless satisfaction. She and Fang were both up in the canopy above, looking for the arboreal threats while the rest of them dealt with the ground-bound ones.
Which were plentiful. Although there didn’t seem to be any traps in the area, there were a number of vicious monitor lizards and fast, venomous snakes. Worse, the lizards were venomous too, and had a nasty tail slash which was strong enough to cut through skin and flesh. They were also about the size of a medium dog and seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed based on their attitude.
Notifications flashed up again and again as the rest of Dominic’s pride got to the business of destroying the enemy with prejudice. There were enough kills being made that he had focussed on any notifications being temporarily muted.
‘I’ve been bitten!’ The message was accompanied with pain and fear. ‘It’s powerful venom.’
‘Get to Sirius, Lionel!’ Dominic almost shouted into the Pride chat. The ameshek was on the other side of the clearing from the healing lion so Dominic did his best to clear the path for his pride member. Worry ran through him at how quickly the green-tinged health bar was emptying. Lionel leaped past him and ran towards the injured ameshek, but the last thing they needed was their healer getting poisoned too.
Opening his mouth, Dominic focussed on doing as much damage as possible to the creatures in between him and the injured ameshek. An oddly reverberant sound came out of his mouth, throbbing almost uncomfortably even in his own ears as he activated the new feature of Majestic Sonic Roar for the first time.
It had a much worse effect on the reptiles. They didn’t run – he had intentionally suppressed that aspect of his roar as much as he could – but instead froze in place. Their health bars started decreasing rapidly after the first three seconds, though it definitely wasn’t 69 points of damage per creature, per second. Not unless these creatures had a whole lot more health points than his experiences so far had indicated. No, it was probably that the damage was shared out among all targets.
Then Procyon raised his own muzzle and added his howl to Dominic’s roar. The red health bars started decreasing even more quickly as the Abilities added and combined. Lionel wasted no time in taking advantage of the frozen state of the reptiles to pump out healing dust for Sirius.
Sirius’s bar rose and fell, rose and fell. Dominic was forced to end his roar when he ran out of breath, feeling completely exhausted and barely able to stay on his paws.
Sirius’s bar dropped below half, Lionel’s efforts having less effect. In the Pride chat, Dominic felt the young male lion’s panic and fear as he frantically tried to push out more healing. He even started using his own health to keep the golden cloud going.
Procyon doggedly kept going, needing to keep the reptiles pinned down. Fortunately, Sekhmet’s timely arrival saw the half-dead, still-frozen reptiles cleared out quickly. Lionel immediately absorbed several of the bodies to continue his healing. Sirius’ bar leaped as the cloud of golden dust around him was replenished.
Sekhmet stayed to defend their backs from the creatures which hadn’t been hit by the sonic attack until Lionel got Sirius stable, then leaped back into the trees.
‘Thank you!’ Dominic told her gratefully, still panting and moving slowly, suffering the aftereffects of using his Roar. Checking his stamina, he noticed that it was practically empty. Lionel was drooping in relief – that had been a lot of healing in a short space of time, even with the absorption of carcasses midway. Sirius wasn’t at full health yet, but his bar was no longer tinged in green. They were back in the game.
Just in time – with his stamina so low, Dominic was annoyingly vulnerable prey for the reptiles who started moving as Procyon’s howl finally trailed off. Unable to move as fast as usual, Dominic saw the snake strike coming, but couldn’t leap out of the way to avoid it.
The snake’s fangs bit deeply into his shoulder and he growled in pain. Even as he bit at the creature and crushed its body, its teeth made a sawing motion, injecting venom into his system. Pulling the head out of his shoulder was enough to stop the flow of venom, but it didn’t rid him of what was already in there. His health started rapidly decreasing, his health bar gaining a green tinge to it.
Fearing that he too was going to need significant healing, Dominic was relieved when he saw that his natural regeneration was having an effect on the rate the poison reduced his health. By absorbing a few of the carcasses lying around, he was able to avoid needing Lionel’s help. The time it took to wear off wasn’t pleasant, though.
Fortunately, he wasn’t alone in his injured and tired state, and most of his other opponents were dispatched by his various pride members. The few that made it through his party were rapidly killed with a snap of his acid-laced teeth. He considered using Second Wind but decided against it: they were almost done here, and he didn’t know what the situation would be like when its timer ran out.
It wasn’t long after that that the immediate jungle area went quiet, their opponents now defeated. Absorbing two of the closest carcasses, Dominic regained enough stamina to get up and start moving around, and enough health to top him off – in the end, the snake bite was the most serious of the injuries he had taken and even that had only wrenched away a bit over a hundred health points.
The new aspect of Majestic Roar is definitely a stamina hog, he decided. He thought he’d probably only used it for nine or ten seconds in total, and, although he hadn’t been full on stamina when he started, he reckoned it had used at least two thirds of his total. Losing that much stamina in such a short time was also worryingly debilitating. He’d have to be careful with the Ability.
Flicking through the bodies and searching the forest floor, he looked for something that could be the key disc. Surely, considering how many opponents they’d had, there would be something here?
‘Look for anything round that might fit into those holes in the temple wall. It might even be in the trees,’ he encouraged his pride. As they looked he asked Procyon and Sirius about their own Ability.
‘It used to leave me feeling rather tired,’ replied Procyon thoughtfully.
‘Me too, especially when we combined howls together,’ agreed Sirius. ‘But it got better with practice.’
‘Yes, that was my experience too,’ seconded Procyon.
‘Thanks,’ Dominic told them. ‘How are you feeling, Sirius?’
‘Better than before,’ the ameshek responded with wry humour. ‘But I think I’ll try to avoid those things in the future. That was unpleasant.’ Dominic grimaced mentally.
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‘I agree,’ he said. ‘If any of the rest of you are injured or low on stamina, absorb some bodies while we look,’ he told them while doing the same for himself. Although his health wasn’t too low and his natural regeneration would have him at full in little time anyway, he definitely needed the stamina. It might seem like a waste absorbing the bodies when he had full health, but walking around with significantly less than half his stamina seemed a bad idea.
Once everyone was done and Lionel had replenished his stores and the health he’d used to heal Sirius in the fight, he packed the rest of the bodies away into his storage space for later, pulling their Cores out first. While the others continued searching for the key, he absorbed the Cores one by one, keeping an eye on his acquired Ability screen. Lionel leapt up to join Fang and Sekhmet in the trees while Procyon and Sirius stayed on ground level – their paws were not nearly as good as the lions’ for climbing.
It seemed like the snakes and monitor lizards had much the same as each other in terms of Abilities, though the monitors had Tail Strike as a primary Ability instead of the boomslangs’ Venomous Bite. They both had Venomous Bite, though, the monitors frequently having it as a second or third Ability along with Quick Strike or Enhanced Scales. The Cores had a fairly limited range of Abilities, odd considering the number of creatures involved. Dominic had to wonder whether the dungeon master was able to control even that or whether the Cores were limited in some way because they were dungeon creatures.
He tucked the rest of the Cores away after he’d got both Venomous Bite and Tail Strike up to 100% and Enhanced Scales up to 75% – despite being very uncertain whether or not he’d take that one even if he could – and added a good chunk of percentage progress to Quick Strike. If things worked out the way he was hoping, he’d have a better use for those Cores soon. Equally, he put the six slon Cores away – they didn’t hold any Ability he was interested in, but they might be able to be useful later.
A sense of triumph came from Fang at the same time as Sekhmet announced that he’d ‘found it’.
The three lions carefully dropped and slid down the trees until they were on the ground. Fang came forwards, a golden metallic disc held between his teeth. He dropped it in front of Dominic. The larger lion nudged it with a paw, tilting his head to one side to consider it from a different angle. It certainly looked like it might fit one of the holes in the relief.
‘Well done, Fang,’ he praised the young male as he put the disc into his storage space. ‘Hopefully the others will all look the same. Let’s go and find the others, now we have more idea of what to look for.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I think we should stay together – there are too many enemies to risk moving alone or in smaller groups.’
‘Agreed,’ Sekhmet said firmly in response.
‘I agree too,’ chimed in Sirius who probably would have died if he’d been alone. None of the others disagreed either. With that decided, the pride, their health and stamina restored, started moving through the almost silent jungle again.
It had been by chance that they’d spotted this last lot. There had been a group of monitor lizards huddled together with more creatures hiding in the treetops which Leo had spotted. Dominic had guessed, correctly as it turned out, that they were guarding something. Now they just needed to find another group of ‘guardians’.
Unlike Dominic’s and Leo’s experience of the previous version of the dungeon, it wasn’t possible to see how many opponents there were before getting into the fight – the trees and nature of the defenders meant that all they could assume was that there were more than met the eye. Nor did it seem possible to take the disc without triggering the defenders – that’s what they tried in the next battle.
Unfortunately, it just triggered the defenders to all converge on the pride member grabbing the disc. Five monitors rapidly turned into fifteen, with about ten snakes adding into the mix as they boiled out of the undergrowth around. Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be any slons in this one and the fight was quickly won.
At least the fights were proving to be very good for Prey Points. After the second fight Dominic checked his status, and saw that he was already only 115 Points away from levelling up again – and that at level 23.
Sekhmet had already levelled up to 15 at a good moment during the battle, as had Procyon. After the fight, Sirius blurred and joined him at level 19. Fang and Lionel had already both levelled up after the previous fight with Lionel doing it twice – once during the battle itself – putting both of them at level 9. After it, they blurred again, taking longer than the previous time. Not surprisingly, since they were both entering Tier 2.
The pride waited patiently. If nothing else, the dungeon had been excellent for the progression of the weaker members of the group. Not really surprising considering that the enemies they’d been fighting had been at or above their level – the boomslangs had been level 8, the monitor lizards level 9, and the slons at level 10. Of course, that also meant that the risk level was higher. Dominic wasn’t at all sad that they were quickly making themselves harder to kill. Not when they would probably need all members of the party to get through the dungeon if this starting room was any judge.
Fang and Lionel therefore getting a bit of power-levelling thanks to the rest of the party was a good thing. Certainly, he’d be glad to have the two young lions at Tier 2 for several reasons, one of which the fact that, they should be more capable of communication too, especially Fang with Sharp Mind like Sekhmet.
‘Ugh,’ complained Leo in his mind. ‘Sharing our Prey Points with potential rivals still makes me itchy.’
Dominic ignored him. He just wanted to complain – they’d already discussed the matter on several occasions. Leo wasn’t even trying to say that they shouldn’t do it anymore, he was just moaning about it. He was coming around, Dominic decided.
Being the only one not to have levelled up at all made Dominic feel a bit left out, even if it wasn’t really surprising. Anyway, he was close enough to the next level that he should get it either in the next fight or the one after, if the trend continued.
By the time the two younger male lions came out of their Tier ups, Dominic was getting a bit antsy. And then, as soon as he came out of the level up, Fang went into another one.
Although it was annoying, it also wasn’t too unexpected – he was the first one to adapt to the new world out of his three brothers, so had got a headstart on them. Well, a headstart on Lionel, anyway. Prince, after all, was no longer around to compete with. Fang must have been close to a level up before this fight; the Prey Points from the recent confrontation must have been enough to just about push him up two levels at ones to level 11.
While he waited, he checked out the two new Abilities of the males. Fang had gained Sure Feet in addition to his basic Pounce and half-step Sharp Mind. Not too surprising, Dominic supposed – he’d been doing a lot of arboreal work. Although it wasn’t exactly a combat Ability, the former-human had certainly found that it gave him more traction and more control over where his feet went. An underestimated advantage. Plus, because they were always using their feet, it went up quite quickly: Dominic’s was already at level 3 – and more than half the way to level 4.
It gave him a 40% increase in steadiness when moving slowly, and a 20% increase when moving fast. Even better, levelling up that Ability had increased the threshold of what was considered ‘fast’ from 25% of maximum speed to 35%.
Out of the Abilities he’d been using, only Enduring Stamina had increased quicker than Sure Feet. That was, of course, thanks to his permanent use exploit where he could keep the active period going pretty much indefinitely by using health which his Regeneration replaced. It had already reached level 5. The period of active use had increased dramatically since level 1, and the penalty to his passive stamina gain during the cooldown period had vanished completely. Not that either of those made much difference to him since almost none of the fights he’d had had required him to drop it so as to preserve health.
Still, it was nice to think that in a few more levels, there might not be any penalties to the cooldown period at all except for not being able to use the enhancement. Plus, the benefits of the Ability itself had improved: now he lost stamina at an even slower rate than before when Enhanced Stamina was active – he could feel the difference. Which, considering his new Roar Ability appeared to be a bit of a stamina-hog was just as well.
Lionel had got a more interesting Ability – one Dominic hadn’t seen yet, though one that made sense considering their current context: Poison Cure. He guessed that it was the Pride Enhancement to the chances of getting a rarer Ability helping out here, combined with the sheer amount of snake bites the lion had helped heal. If this new Ability did what it sounded like, his healing in the future should be even more effective.
Finally, Fang came out of his second level up, and they were ready to go.
‘Hi,’ piped a voice in the Pride chat cheerfully. Dominic identified it as coming from Fang based on the rest of the impression that came over at the same time of appearance and scent. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.’
Dominic almost stumbled over his own paws.