Once again when they breached the dungeon, there was no warning. Just a sudden collapse of the wall in front of them, leading to an expansive open space. And, once again, they were immediately attacked.
It was not a swarm of spiders this time, however, but a nine-foot-tall minotaur. Antoine cursed and stepped forward to block the higher level monster from pulverizing his charges, but before he could meet its charge the Korgoath intervened, harrying it from its sides and distracting it from the humans.
The monster’s defensive attacks sent one of the younger Korgoath flying through the air. The male slammed into the ground ten meters away, spinning and tumbling awkwardly. It lay stunned for a few seconds before getting up and shaking itself off.
Antoine took a moment to examine the way that the minotaur moved before stepping aside. “It’s strong, but you outnumber it. I’ll step in if I need to, but you need the experience and I don’t.”
Jessica needed no further invitation. A bar of bright light flashed between her and the minotaur. The fire did significant damage, but did not incinerate the creature outright; its higher level providing a natural resistance to the low level sorceresses magic. Mostly, she succeeded in severely pissing the bull-headed monster off. It turned to her, ignoring Lo’s attempt to hamstring it, and charged at the girl from Earth.
Sevin stepped into meet the charge, planting his feet and his spear both. The minotaur impaled itself deeply rather than turn away or stop, but it still barreled straight over the teenage Warrior. Worse, the weapon was stuck inside the creature’s abdomen, leaving Sevin disarmed.
Jessica cast her magic a second time, aiming for the minotaur’s head. The attack landed, and she dodged out of the path of it’s charge at the last second. It slammed into the wall and turned around, looking about for the intruders, but it had been blinded, it’s eyes burnt out by Jessica’s second magical attack.
Despite being blinded and severely wounded, the creature’s extreme vitality kept it upright. Tom, realizing that Sevin needed something to replace the spear that was stuck inside the massive monster, went to fetch one of the quarterstaffs from where it was strapped to one of the horses.
Sevin, seeing that the monster was blinded, began making mocking sounds to enrage it to get it to charge at him again. His attempts at distracting the creature were successful, and once it was rushing towards him again, Jessica unleashed a third magical attack at its back, incinerating the fat and muscle of the beasts shoulders and neck.
The minotaur roared in pain and anger. Sevin dodged out of the way at the last possible moment, and the creature charged right past him, not stopping until it slammed into the wall. It spun around again, searching for a target with its blinded eyes and finding nothing.
Tom tossed the quarterstaff to Sevin, who caught it easily. Unfortunately Tom made the mistake of announcing his action with a shouted “Catch!” drawing the beast’s attention to him. Once again the minotaur charged, this time at the youngest member of the party.
Tom froze to see the massive monster charging at him. Antoine cursed and blurred forward, but it was Lo who got there first, slamming into Tom’s side and knocking him out of the way of the charging enemy.
The minotaur collided with one of the horses and, finally having a target for its rage, began furiously beating the poor creature. It continued until a fourth magical attack from Jessica distracted it, leaving the injured beast of burden to suffer as it turned back in the direction of this latest attack and charged again.
Tom cursed his weakness as he stood back up, trying to figure out how to help the party. The closest he had to an actual offensive attack was Claim, but he required physical contact for that Skill to work and he was fairly certain that even if he managed to clutch onto the minotaur, the beast would pulverize him before he managed to activate the Skill.
Aside from which, the Minotaur was clearly high level, and Tom was uncertain that he could manage to Claim it at all as he was right now.
Uncertain what else to do, Tom Spawned a gnoll. The creature appeared in a flash of light, looked around with a confused expression, laughing nervously. The minotaur locked onto the sound and charged, colliding with the freshly spawned monster and once again beating it until the gnoll was little more than a pile of broken flesh. The gnoll’s sacrifice did give the rest of the party a bit of time to recover and reorient.
The spear had fallen out of the minotaur during one of the charges – Tom wasn’t exactly certain when – and Antoine reclaimed it, tossing it wordlessly towards Sevin, who dropped his quarterstaff to catch his weapon of choice. Sevin Charged at the monster, blurring forward as the Skill activated. He shouted a challenge, causing the minotaur to pause in it’s pulverization of the dead gnoll and turn to look with its blind eyes at the oncoming human. Sevin’s spear caught it in its chest, right in the heart.
The creature bellowed, but even fatally wounded it swiped the spear aside and retaliated with a fierce blow that sent Sevin flying into the air. The teenager landed badly, bounced, and landed worse.
The minotaur roared in anger and defiance as it bled from its wound. Then, abruptly, it fell to the side. It twitched, trying to stand. A moment passed, and finally it was still.
Tom rushed over to check on his injured friend, but Antoine beat him to it.
“Stay back, let me examine him first before we move him,” Antoine said, and Tom demurred to the Hero’s experience.
After a few minutes examination, in which he pinched various parts of Sevin’s body to confirm that the boy could feel the senation, Antoine let out a sigh of relief.
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“The worst possible injury I was worried you might have suffered is a broken spine, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’d still rather not move you for a while yet. What’s your health at right now?” Antoine asked.
“Eighteen percent,” Sevin admitted, groaning.
“Well, I think you shouldn’t try to move for a while. Not until it regenerates to twenty-five percent,” Antoine informed him.
“I got two levels from that,” Sevin said, as much to distract himself as anything else. “Two at once. What level was that thing?”
“High,” Antoine answered. “I apologize. I should have taken care of it myself rather than put you at risk.”
“Won’t grow any stronger with you babying us,” Sevin argued.
Antoine’s expression was grim, but he agreed with the boy. He regretted that Sevin had been injured in the battle, but the rewards of two levels of experience was nothing to sneeze at.
“Stay put, Sevin. I’m going to go scout the rest of the dungeon to see if it’s safe enough to continue, or if we should retreat,” Antoine said, and he left to make good on his promise.
This particular dungeon was lit like the first one Tom had delved; crystals imbedded in the walls that gave off light. It was brighter than the other two dungeons he had Claimed, but still quite dim. He sat next to Sevin as the older boy recovered, and the two chatted like they hadn’t just been in a life-and-death struggle.
The conversation was forced, as they joked about some of their past pranks in Tilluth valley. Both boys were trying to distract the other one from what had just happened, and neither was succeeding.
Jessica, for her part, listened with one ear as she reflected on the fight. It was the first time her magic hadn’t been a silver bullet. She was still proud of her contribution to the fight; blinding the minotaur had been a key stroke against the beast. She was, however, forced to reconsider her impression of how powerful her magic really was. Perhaps it had only been so effective this far because they had been fighting low level monsters, and her overpoweredness would fade over time as the monsters grew more and more durable.
When Jessica did say something, it was to inform the others that she was now level eight, having gained two levels just like Sevin. Tom had gained a level during the fight as well, and was now level nine. So had the Korgoath, for that matter, except for Lo who was already the highest level member of the party except for Antoine.
“What level do you think that minotaur was?” Jessica asked.
“Upper thirties, at least,” Sevin answered promptly. “Maybe even higher.”
“Does that mean that the Dungeon Core is the same level?” she inquired.
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably.”
“If you claim it, do you think you could resist the urge to go all evil mastermind again?” she pressed.
“I don’t know, Jessica,” Tom said, growing frustrated. “Maybe it would be best if Antoine simply vanquished this core. Just because I’m a Controller doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.”
“Right, sorry,” she said.
When Antoine returned, he had a grim expression on his face. “There are three more rooms like this connected by long twisting hallways. Each of the rooms has a minotaur guarding it. Considering that we barely defeated the last one, I’m not certain it’s worth the risk to challenge the others.”
The teenagers considered the man’s words while Lo licked himself, waiting for the humans to decide whether or not to retreat. It was Tom who spoke up eventually.
“I have a plan I’d like to try,” Tom said, swallowing. “I think I can conquer this dungeon without putting the rest of us at further risk. Except for my monsters, that is.”
“What monsters do you have that are strong enough to take on another minotaur?” Antoine asked.
Tom swallowed, then explained his plan.
~~~~~~~
Lo stalked passed the sleeping minotaur, getting into position as his pack encircled it. He quivered with anticipation. He hadn’t gotten a level from the previous fight, but he had gotten a significant amount of experience, and this fight should be enough to push him into level twenty. He was looking forward to the milestone and the growth it would provide.
Once the Korgoath were in position, Tom, from outside the room itself, started the attack. A swarm of serpents entered the room, dozens of the things. Half of them were level nine asps, while the other half Tom had Evolved into level fifteen vipers. The sleeping minotaur did not wake up until it was covered with the writhing serpeants, each of them biting its exposed flesh, their fangs delivering potent venom.
The creature burst awake and bellowed, clawing at the snakes and throwing them away whenever it managed to grip one. Lo watched patiently as the monster flailed about. Most of the snakes were crushed by the monster’s panicked flagellation, and it wasn’t until they were mostly dead that Lo’s pack began to move.
Unlike the first minotaur Lo had fought, this one could see. Not that it noticed them immediately, as the pack of Korgoath were Stealthed, but once the first of his pack attacked, the fight was on in earnest.
The korgoath followed their master’s plan perfectly, harrying the beast while staying just outside of reach. The fight was long and exhausting, and none of the pack managed to score a strike that inflicted any significant damage to their oponent. The monster’s thighs were too thick for the typical tactic of hamstringing. Frontal attacks were a no-go due to the risk involved. So mostly the korgoath worked at being as annoying as possible.
Like the first Minotaur, when death came, it was sudden. It stopped responding to the Korgoath, clutching its heart, then sat on the floor. A moment later, it lay over. The venom of the asps and vipers had finally overcome its immense vitality. Lo and his pack’s own contribution was to simply keep the beast active while the venom did its work.
“Great work, Lo,” Tom said, coming into the room once the creature was assuming room temperature. “And the rest of you too. I was wondering, how do monsters like you acquire names?”
“We choose them, once we learn to speak,” Lo answered. “The others are too young for names yet.”
“Well, when that changes, let me know,” the young Controller said. “Now that we’ve proved this strategy works, the rest of the dungeon shouldn’t be that difficult. Just tedious; it takes so long to spawn so many vipers!”
Lo cocked his head in a manner that might have been a shrug. He wasn’t exactly eager, except for the fact that his contribution towards killing the minotaur this time had been particularly large, earning him level twenty and more than half of the required experience for level twenty one.
“Tom,” Lo said, “May I touch the core stone?”
Tom looked surprised at the request. “Why?”
“I have gained a new Skill; it requires affixation.”