James rested and took out some water to wash his healed wound of its dried blood. After taking a catalog of his remaining items related to trapping he searched for his next victim.
After a few turns through one of the branching tunnels of the cave, he found a pair of spiders on patrol. James prepared his rope trap and bush trap. It wouldn’t be as effective as if Ian was controlling the fire, but he made do. James would just need to make some modifications. Once the traps were set he alerted the spiders as usual.
The spiders went running for him and he distracted them with his arrows. Due to the tight quarters and the spiders running side by side, all of his arrows hit them. One of the spiders hit the activation trip wire which set off a chain reaction.
The tightened rope shot forward towards the spiders slowing them long enough for the fire starter to light. A mix of the moss, leaves and cloth from James’s former teammates lit up quickly and burned under the spiders. The hit of fumes was at least twice as strong due to them being closer than usual and James pounced on them.
James grabbed from the stockpile of arrows he had summoned into his quiver and began rapid fire shooting them at the spiders. He didn’t care as much for accuracy and instead worked on speed. His abilities activated and his hands blurred from bow to quiver. Each time he aimed dead center, and the spread of the arrows did the rest.
The spiders tried to move forward but stumbled into each other as they tried to traverse the rocky ground. James took a moment to cover his face with a cloth as the updraft brought some of the lingering fumes toward him. At this point, he was less worried about the spiders now that they looked like pin cushions.
Now that the spiders were bleeding out and thoroughly injured James refocused on precision shots instead of wildfire. One of the things he need to do was reduce the spread of his multi-shot which he planned on practicing throughout his looping practice in the dungeon.
It took James three volleys until the two spiders died.
James continued his killing spree through the dungeon, sometimes with the help of traps, and sometimes not. Eventually, he cleared out the majority of the tunnels after collecting some more scrapes and downing another potion.
As he had done before James fired off four arrows at a time at the queen. She was impaled by all four. It slowed her down, but she started charging her hexes. James kept firing and dodged out of the way of her first attacks. His first mistake came when he checked for arrows that were no longer there. The queen hit him with a leg and James was thrown into her webbing.
James tried to struggle but he knew what was coming. At least the queen was nice enough to end him with magic. The blood and life drained out of James, and he felt faint. He closed his eyes after a few more moments and blacked out.
He awoke in the same spot as usual overlooking the 17th floor. He looked around and took a moment to process his actions thus far.
“Jason. Ian and Derek have left. What should we do?” asked Naomi.
“Don’t worry about them. I’ll catch up to them soon.”
He stood up and took out his knives as that would be quicker. Before anything else could be said Naomi went down and he took Wes down from behind. James gathered their most important things and went about redoing the steps he had taken before.
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James caught up to Ian and Derek fighting the skeletal knight boss like before. This time James decided to sit up on the hill and wait. They wouldn’t spot him due to the fighting and he did not care how the outcome of the fight went. It also helped that he had all the time in the world at the moment.
Derek removed the knight's sword arm and Ian was whittling it down with fire, but it was unfeeling to the pain. With the sword gone Derek made the killing blow and removed the skeleton’s head.
“Nice job,” said James.
“Where are the others?” asked Derek.
“They are a bit behind me,” James responded.
James took a step closer than his bow shot up from his side. Ian went down first as the ranged fighter and then Derek fell before he had much time to react. That was also in part because he was too stunned to do anything for the two or three seconds it took for James to fire off a second shot. He hit them both in the neck stopping them from making much noise. James moved past them quickly and entered the minotaur maze.
Hours passed as James killed minotaurs and then spiders thereafter with his bow. He was slow at first without the help of the traps but his skill with his bow eventually surpassed the need for most traps. It would now take longer for him to set up a trap than to kill the monsters without. Though there were a few exceptions in the case of multiple enemies.
After some rest in between the slaughter of monsters, James stood in front of the entrance of the spider queen he had died too before. Instead of going inside James waited and practiced. His last death showed that killing the boss was going to be difficult with his four-arrow limitation. He needed to try and practice something different. Something he would need for future floors.
James sat on the cave floor and started forming his lightning arrow. After summoning it on the bow he chose to disperse the mana and the attack in turn to reduce mana usage. This way he could practice using the attack without wasting too much time. After the initial summon ate away at half his mana reserves it only slowly drained his mana when resummoning. His goal like the four-arrow attack was to improve his speed.
The arrow was a spell more than an arrow, so its summoning relied more on concentration and memorization of the spell arrow construction. James repeated the summoning over a dozen times before letting himself rest.
‘The speed increase feels minimal, and the mana drain is the same. I can still only use the spell twice per floor maybe three if I am lucky. I need to find a way to reduce the mana cost but for now, I can practice the spell and see if I can modify it to become something more.’
James started summoning the arrow again but this time he went slower and focused on the type of mana he was using. Instead of the lightning mana, he went simpler and less chaotic. The arrow instead of glowing yellow with a streak of white turned translucent. The wind arrow created a natural breeze around itself. James didn’t have much time to admire it before his mistake in construction caused the arrow to fall apart. The mana he had used was lost.
‘That seemed to work at least. I need to try that again. I think I know what went wrong.’
James spent the next hour practicing and feeling out the potential of the two other powers he was familiar with. Namely wind/air and water. He knew in theory that an arrow could be formed out of any mana type including unaligned mana however the cost to use the attacks were substantial for him. That was why he chose to stick to the most destructive mana attack he knew he could use.
At the end of the practice, the new mana spells felt awkward and unfamiliar in his hands but they were usable and would not break apart in his hands. In between the practice, James had considered ways of attack against the spider queen and the demon that would come next. Standing back up from his spot on the floor James prepared his attacks and entered the boss room.
His lightning arrow flew, and James followed up the attack with a volley of arrows. The immediate attack caught the spider queen off guard. The queen came at him and got in close, but James kept moving. Mini spiders started flooding the area which made it harder for James to dodge. James readied a wind arrow and let it loose for the first time. The first arrow stunned and shocked the queen momentarily causing her to stop the production of her minions. This one caused a sonic boom after leaving James’s bow.
James covered his ears as it hit the queen causing vibrations to ripple out aggravating her injuries further. James made note of its effects and brought up his bow. The side effect of losing his hearing made his combat sense struggle as he dodged at the wrong time and gathered cuts and scrapes. James went in to finish off the queen when he was attacked from the side by one of the mini spiders. It knocked his arrow off course, and he fell to his knees. James tried to recover but it was too late. The queen finished him off sending him back to the 17th floor once more.