The raid started with much fanfare. We received a hero’s departure, with support and cheering from all the village. Dungeons operated on different time scales than the real world, so if all went well they’d see us come out almost immediately.
As we raided the dungeon, I quickly realized we had a huge problem. All of us were strong individually, but we had not practiced enough as a team. Our battling devolved into one-on-one fighting. We had no real notion of holding a line or creating a front. We didn’t use the corridors to our advantage. I tried to remedy this, but Aldon wasn’t used to being a follower, and Laetitia hesitated under my leadership.
Linus and Tifa seemed to get the message and were genuinely doing their best, but we all had a lot to learn. Three of us was enough to create a front in a corridor, and slowly Aldon and Laetitia saw the advantages. By the time we faced more than five kobolds at once, we prevented them from using their numbers against us. We were limited in using our numbers against them as well. I had become a back-liner, fighting with my spear from the 2nd rank, but no one else had a large weapon or support skills. We rotated front-liners, leaving one person resting during much of the fighting.
Eventually, we had our first drop. A cure light wounds spell book. Spell books were one-time use items that learnt a spell. The spell wouldn’t be that effective as the highest magical aptitude in the party was mine and Laetitia’s 2 each. I wanted this drop badly, but decided it was too important of a skill for a high priestess. We gave it to Laetitia, and she became a backline healer.
I discovered that overall XP didn’t give me levels but could instead be spent on improving attributes when it got high enough. Skills could only be raised by training not through XP. The scaling was rather harsh, and I was a long way from raising a 15 rated skill. I decided to balance my build, focusing on raising my magic. I convinced Laetitia to do the same as she’d become the best healer in the village.
Everything went fine until the kobolds got clever. They sprung a hallway ambush having split into two groups and got us from both sides. There were 10 of them and 5 of us. We fought back-to-back with a 3 on 3 on 1-side and a 4 on 2 on the other. I was in the 4 on 2 with Laetitia. As kobolds went down more replaced them. The 3-on-3 side was doing fine, but the 4-on-2 was in trouble. Laetitia had taken a wound and looked to be on the verge of taking another. I was trying to fight three enemies at once, but couldn’t attack often enough to force the last kobold to ignore Laetitia.
As my spear went through the neck of one of the kobolds I was fighting I heard a loud scream as Laetitia fell to the ground. She was holding her stomach which had been sliced open with an axe, trying desperately to keep her insides inside. I told Aldon to disengage and help the backline. I stepped sideways to prevent the kobold from dealing a finishing blow. I screamed at Laetitia, trying to get her to stay awake and use her healing magic. I was trying to do too much at once and took a glancing blow for my trouble, drawing blood on my arm. Fortunately, it wasn’t my dominant hand and my two-handed spear was not badly affected. Aldon and I managed to stabilize the backline while Tifa and Linus held the front. After the kobolds were down we turned to Laetitia. She was unconscious, but the wound on her stomach had closed. She had managed to use her healing magic, and all we could do now was wait uneasily to see if it would be enough. We looted the 20 kobolds and got a cultivation manual for our troubles. It was expectedly fairly low-tier but it was better than anything in the village so far. Aldon wanted it, and I was content to give it to him.
Cultivation manuals were double edged swords. They’d greatly improve your ability to gain the cultivation skill from cultivating, but if you could only use one at a time. If you ever wanted to stop using the one you were using you’d lose half your skill levels in cultivation. As such, it was important to only use strong methods if you’d be able to access them. This cultivation manual could be valuable for Aldon however, as it was unclear if the village would have access to something better in quite some time.
We each handled waiting differently. Aldon and I tried to steady our emotions enough to cultivate, and were only slightly successful. Tifa and Linus mostly paced nervously. I regretted giving Laetitia the cure light wounds skill, as I could have cast it at least five times over while we were waiting. I also started to doubt my point spending strategy slightly. What if that were me who went down in a heap? I checked Laetitia’s forehead and found it was quite hot, she had a high fever.
We discovered something dangerous about dungeons while we were waiting. The monsters were on the move. We ended up having to form up to fight another party of kobolds while Laetitia was asleep with a fever. Fortunately, four of us fought just as effectively as five when we were only attacked from a single side. We were lucky with the drops from that fight as I was able to take the cure light wounds spell that dropped. I upgraded my magic skill to 4, using all of my accumulated XP. I cast cure light wounds repeatedly while watching Laetitia’s status. My mana ran dry before she was healed. Nonetheless, she was in much better shape and her fever had fallen. I meditated to recover mana, and continued to heal her whenever I could. Eventually, she woke up. Laetitia came too groggily and was rather surprised to be alive. I explained finding another cure light wounds spell and being able to use it on her. We had a strong lesson in the power of magic.
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We continued to fight our way through the dungeons slaying kobolds as we went. Eventually, we had found 3 more copies of the cultivation Manual; Laetitia, Tifa and Linus each decided to use one. No more copies of cure light wounds dropped, and neither did any other spells. We made ‘camp’ to eat and rest and recover. We each took turns taking watch as we slept. We weren’t ambushed. After we finished sleeping, we continued through the dungeon.
The tunnels started funneling us around and towards a central area. Eventually we found an entrance five people wide. It opened up into a giant hallway with over 100 kobolds. There was a larger kobold among them, whose status was listed as Kobold General. The next part was quite tricky. The world didn’t have wood until this morning, and I hadn’t got around to showing them tanning yet. As such we had no ranged weapons.
I decided to pull mobs myself with the remainder of the party standing back. I’d charge into the range of the kobolds until they came towards me, and then retreated quickly back to the entranceway. I ended up standing in the middle, and we formed a wall in the entranceway, able to fight 5-on-5. The fight was long and exhausting, so long that everyone gained levels in their weapon skill. No one escaped wounds because we made mistakes as we got tired. Fortunately, with two healers, no one went down. A pile of kobold bodies was in front of us, stacked as tall as my waist.
Fortunately, as we looted them the bodies vanished. Even more fortunately, we picked up a simple range spell, firebolt. I decided to take the spell since I was the one who understood how to pull mobs. No one had problems with this as I hadn’t got a cultivation manual. Two magical helms dropped, one giving a martial prowess level, the other giving a magical prowess level. The high priestess got the magical level, while the village chief took the martial prowess level. I was partial to getting one of these equips for myself, but felt that would be greedy as I’d already learned two spells. I also suspected letting people take stuff now would be good since it would give me a better case for items once we defeated the kobold general.
After we recovered our stamina, I went to lure the kobolds. This time it was easier to lure from range using firebolt. However, all 20 remaining kobolds came with the kobold general. Once again, we used a line formation to fight 5-on-5. We were fortunate the kobolds weren’t very bright. The general stood in the back until only 4 kobolds were left. I engaged the general while the others quickly finished off their last kobolds. With us getting a 5-on-1 our first boss monster wasn’t a challenge. The kobold general fell to the ground with a scream as my spear pieced his belly, when I retracted it his entrails fell to the ground and he died in quite some agony. I wasn’t really comfortable with this sort of killing even if the enemies were ‘monsters’, but I suppose I had chosen my path. I put my enemy out of his suffering with a quick fatal blow. When we searched the kobold general, we got something rather exciting. He dropped a key, which presumably unlocked a treasure chest.
We found the treasure chest in one corner of the large room and unlocked it. Inside were four items. Each was a piece of magical armor. In addition to the magical armor having a unique power, magical armor automatically adjusts to fit the wearer. I looked over the four pieces of armor and we decided how to divvy them up. One gave a level of magical prowess, that one easily went to Laetitia. Another, gave a level of martial prowess, which we chose to equip Aldon with. The last two pieces each gave a level of cultivation prowess. I decided to let Linus and Tifa have them, as I was hoping for better spoils from later fights.
In the other corner of the room was a staircase heading down to the second floor of the dungeon. I suspected the monsters would get harder and more challenging after we descended. Nonetheless, our only path was forwards, we couldn’t leave the dungeon without defeating the last boss.
Damian White Status
Spoiler :
God Status Name Damian White Type Biped Stats Beauty15 Martial Prowess15 Magical Prowess 4 Cultivation Prowess 15 Technological Prowess2 LifespanInfinite Multiplicity 15 Special Abilities: None Skills: Cultivation 15 Spear 12 Unarmed Combat 9 Metal Working 4 Hunting 1 Experience50 Spend Experience Spend Points Back