Gamer Guild’s Dungeon (3rd Floor, Pt. 2)

--- Jon ---

“Might as well see what this dungeon sees as a magic user.” He told the girls as he moved the Shaman statue onto the central pedestal where it began to glow.

“So we’re going against the healers then.” Roxanne said in an odd tone before shaking her head as the rest of the statues disappeared in a flash of light. “That’ll be a pain.”

“Maybe but Pix is a healer herself and Ying has her own healing factor going.” He pointed out. “I figure with the way we’ve been going and the fact that we have a few extra hands this time around it won’t hurt us too bad to go after the ‘rarer’ things on this floor.”

“Reasonable deduction.” Ying agreed with a nod before turning to Roxanne. “Is there anything we need to be concerned about with the Shaman Goblins?”

“Besides the healing thing?” The gamer girl asked, beginning towards the door. “They’ve also got this vine-root thing they can use to snare people in place but they don’t start doing that until after the fork.”

“The fork?” He repeated.

“Yeah, I think I told you that this floor splits after the third room?” Roxanne reminded him. “Anyways at the end of one split is a treasure room and at the end of the other is a boss room. It’s not too complicated but it does get… more so on later floors. Especially when the GM decides to start making things non-euclidean… Honestly, those floors give me a headache to have to work my way through.”

“Are any of the floors in this dungeon like that?” Ying frowned.

Roxanne took a moment to think about it. “Maybe the sixth and seventh? Though the effects are limited to a couple of rooms, because the last time the GM made a floor that was completely twisty, every one had to give up mid-floor since they couldn’t find the entrance or the exit.”

“That would be problematic.” He admitted. (I wonder if my flashlight would help any in that situation?)

“Which is why, like I said, the GM usually limits the effect to a handful of puzzle rooms.” Roxanne nodded. “But either way it looks like the kobolds are getting antsy so we should get moving.”

Looking around and seeing several picking fights with each other, he found he couldn’t really disagree. “Right, I guess that means we should get them moving.”

“Actually, that does remind me something I was wondering.” Roxanne stopped him before he could get the kobolds organized again. “How exactly are we going to pick fights with the Goblins? I mean they’re not going to just wait for us to get all of the kobolds into the room.”

“That… is a valid point.” He admitted before turning to Ying. “So given how it’s your cult, what do you want to do here?”

Ying gave the crowd a once over. “Hmm… How many kobolds are there exactly?”

“Sixty-six.” Roxanne answered easily.

The draconic teen seemed to think about it for a moment. “There are five- No, six if we count the boss kobold- So with six of us why don’t each of us take eleven of the kobolds and we can tackle the rooms in cycle.”

He thought about it himself before nodding. “I guess that works, if we count the boss as one of his own kobolds. Though I’m a little reluctant to give Pix control over her own squad of minions.” (Honestly, I give her five seconds before she goes mad with power.)

“Well we could do sets of twenty-two if we split it between the three of us.” Roxanne pointed out.

“Uh, no.” He disagreed. (Because I am not corralling more of these guys than I have to.) “We’ll just confiscate her minions if she abuses them.”

“If we’re lucky she’ll treat them the same way she treats you.” Ying offered.

He had to keep himself from laughing at that because, (that still means we’re going to have to confiscate them.)

“So if we’re going in cycles who goes first?” He asked instead.

“Mm, how about we send the boss kobold first?” Ying suggested. “That way we have a baseline of what they’re capable of without us leading them.”

“Yeah, we can make it into a whole side game or something, with the winner being whoever can keep more of their minions alive.” Roxanne added excitedly.

“I guess that works.” He sighed, before turning to the nearby boss kobold. “You catch all of that?”

“Yes, I shall lead the first wave against the goblin scum!” The kobold nodded with a feral grin.

“Er, yeah, but uh, can you not make it sound so… racist? Or is it specist?” He frowned before eventually shaking his head. “Either way, uh, you go first and if things go bad we’ll bail you out if you need it.”

“Ha! As if we’d need help against those pointy eared fr-” The kobold seemed to pale and shiver before continuing in a meek tone. “I mean, our enemies shall fall before us?”

“Mm-hm.” He nodded.

“Well that was… a thing.” Roxanne chuckled nervously.

He blinked. “What was?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Ying assured him before organizing the kobolds into sets of eleven.

Deciding that it probably wasn’t anything worth worrying about, he instead explained the situation to Pix and Wolf. (And yeah I don’t like that smile Pix is giving me.)

“Alright, this is your squad.” Ying told him, twenty or so kobolds following her as she subtly nudged him to follow another squad of kobolds. One with the boss kobold at the front.

“Right.” He couldn’t help but laugh a little nervously as the Kobolds following them began to stare at him. Something that wasn’t aided by the fact that Ying seemed intent on doing the same for some reason. “Uh, is something wrong?”

“You… don’t want to be in charge of the kobolds?” Ying pointed out in one of her bouts of social insight.

Figuring there was no point in hiding it if she was calling him out he instead shrugged at her. “Er, not really. If I’m being honest I just don’t like the idea of telling people what to do.”

“Wasn’t being a camp counselor supposed to give you leadership skills?” Ying smirked.

“That’s different.” He argued. “I wasn’t telling anyone what to do so much as helping them do what everyone else scheduled.”

“And how is that different from what we’re doing here?”

“Because the kobolds could die if we screw up.” He admitted with a sigh. “I mean don’t get me wrong I know they’re madness constructs and can’t really die so much as return to a sea of consciousness dwelling within the GM’s personal reality, which itself could be considered a metaphysical construct of her mind. A detail that essentially renders them deathless, but it still brings up the philosophical debate about whether their lives and feelings grant their deaths -as temporary as that may be- weight. In fact if we take that a step further, just because they come back to life doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t ‘dying’, especially if they don’t retain the memories of their various lives but instead keep resetting to a specific instance of themselves. Which could be considered a more permanent form of death, and that death is what we should feel some form of guilt over, ya know?”

Ying just stared at him.

The kobolds just stared at him.

Roxanne on the other side of the kobold horde just stared at him.

“What?”

“That’s, that’s an… admittedly large amount to… unpack. Given what I could understand.” Ying told him with a slight daze before pointing ahead of them. “Oh, look, we're at the the next room.”

Ying shook her head and put on a too-chiper (for her) smile. “Right, so we agreed that the boss kobold would lead the first wave, so that we can see what we’re working with.”

Shaking himself out of a stupor of sorts, the boss kobold gave Ying a salute before turning to his squad of kobolds. “Right, you heard the mistress. Let’s show these goblins why kobolds are a superior starter monster!”

“For the mistress!” The kobold squad cheered before rushing into the room full of goblins, (without any scouting.)

Inside the room were four goblins, and from what he could see two were Shaman, while the other two were a warrior and a rogue. Now even with their classes an eleven on four fight was destined to be a slaughter, especially when half of those fighting were non-combat medics. The easy solution was to swarm the rogue so he couldn’t use his bow, before turning on the warrior and overwhelming the one-on-one fighter, all while sending a couple of units to harass the medics and keep them from healing.

This admittedly wasn’t the only viable strategy. It wasn’t even the best one he could come up with. What it was was the most obvious one from his perspective, and the one he expected the kobolds to use given their general lack of experience.

Unfortunately this was not the strategy the kobolds chose.

(Why are they surrounding the goblins?! They’re giving them time to steady themselves! That completely defeats the point of rushing someone! And they don’t even have enough units to surround them properly!) He watched in horror.

Admittedly an eleven on four fight should be a slaughter, it should not however be a slaughter in the favor of the four (if the eleven know what they’re doing!)

By the time three of the kobolds had been pixelated he had his bow out with an arrow notched, before releasing it and shooting the goblin rogue in the head before it could kill another kobold. A second and third arrow caught the shaman in their torsos, preventing them from healing the warrior as he rushed it with his axe at the ready.

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The Warrior goblin barely had time to get its guard up before a heavy axe strike staggered it and a kick to the back of its knee forced it to kneel just long enough for a knife to run across its neck, the wound bleeding lights as the dungeon construct slowly dissolved into nothing.

Turning back to the shaman he pulled his axe back before throwing it hard enough to embed in and then shatter the one furthest from him as he rushed the closer goblin and drove his knife into its chest. A quick twist of his wrist caused the construct to burst into a swarm of lights that reunited into a red potion vial.

“Everyone else okay?” He asked the kobolds, hoping none of them had been injured in that snafu.

All of the kobolds were staring at him again, this time with a sort of awe that left him distinctly uncomfortable.

“Well, that was impressive.” Ying commented as she and Roxanne wandered into the room. “Though I thought we were going to leave this situation to the kobold boss?”

“Yeah, well I… I couldn’t just leave them to die…” He frowned, shifting uncomfortably as he noticed the one kobold not staring at him in admiration. Something he was sure would’ve filled him with some relief if not for the fact that it was something likely to bite him later.

“Hm, fair enough.” Ying told him in a vaguely amused sort of way as Pix flew towards him.

His favorite little fairy darted all around him while chirping and tweeting in chiding tone as if she was scolding him for rushing into a fight while she’d fallen behind.

“I’m fine Pix, these guys honestly weren’t even a threat.” (To me.) He added mentally, for the sake of whatever pride the kobolds may have.

“Right…” Roxanne chuckled nervously, one hand full of loot and the other offering him his arrows back. “I think these are yours.”

(Huh, didn’t notice her gathering these.) “Thanks.” He nodded accepting the arrows, and adding another mental note to the other teen’s abilities.

“So, uh, looks like we got two potions, four gold, and a goblin ear.” Roxanne told them as she shifted through the loot.

“You know I have to ask, are all of the monster treasures going to be body parts?” (Because I got more than enough of that dealing with DeSade.)

“Eh, it’s a proof of kill kind of thing in games.” Roxanne explained with a shrug. “Still what have we learned as far as letting the kobolds fight for themselves?”

“They have absolutely zero sense of strategy.” He pointed out in a tone that was surprisingly dry even to him. “Seriously all they did was run in and try to surround them! I mean where was the target prioritization!”

“Uh, I’m going to be honest, excluding the rogue class monsters none of them are really programmed for target priority.” Roxanne admitted. “I think the GM played around with that before, but it ended up raising the difficulty a little too much when they always targeted the healer. Made it so no one wanted to play support, and players for those classes are already rare.”

“Still,” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “We can’t really let them go without some kind of training.”

“Well, training would take too long to set up and this is why you don’t break the system.” Roxanne (un)helpfully informed him. “Well unless you’re a sociopath who can deal with hundreds of your minions suffering from permadeath.”

“I’d rather we not tempt that rabbit’s hole.” Ying growled at the other girl before continuing in a calmer tone. “Still if you’d prefer you can take your squad and try showing them how best to proceed.”

Realizing that Ying wasn’t just going to let the leadership thing go, he eventually sighed. “Fine, but… Instead of taking an entire squad I’m just going to take the remnants of this one.”

“No! These are minions!” The boss kobold growled at him. “You’ve got your own minions I’m not letting you take mine too!”

“I’m not taking your minions.” He told the kobold, before figuring out the best way to calm down the ornery little thing. “Since I can’t handle a large squad I’m trading your squad for mine, which puts you in charge of eleven kobolds instead of seven. And since you’ll have more minions than me that’ll mean you’re more important than me in your mistress’s army.”

“Ah, so you realize I’m your superior!” The boss kobold laughed.

“Sure. Whatever speeds this up.” He shrugged before turning his attention to the kobolds. “Those of you who just fought here, come with me and we’ll knock out the next room real quick.”

“I thought you didn’t want to lead the kobolds?” Ying asked with a smirk.

“I don’t but at the very least I can make sure they don’t get themselves killed. Have fun corralling the other sixty kobolds.” He sighed, turning to leave and taking the seven kobolds with him. (Ugh, I’m starting to regret letting Ying talk me into this…)

When he’d agreed to trying this dungeon out he’d thought it’d be a simple game or something. And while it technically was a game, it was also proving to be more of a chore with him just walking around and dispelling whatever constructs he ran into rather than the games he played with his ma and the girls where he could (actually sharpen my fangs.)

(No.) He shook his head. (I’m hanging out with Wolf, Pix, and Ying and that’s good enough. In fact I even made a new friend with Roxanne… maybe.)

He was still a little iffy when it came to the whole socializing thing, at least when it came to people in his age group. By contrast he was great with kids and despite having two teenage friends he could consider a dozen or so adults to be friends far more easily. (Still things are going well, so hopefully I can count Roxanne as a friend.)

Caught up in his musings he nearly walked into the doors for the next room.

“Right, so first lesson: Information is power. So whenever you get a chance to scout the enemy, you do it.” He told the (surprisingly) attentive kobolds as he gently pried the door to the next room full of goblins, where he found a set up similar to the previous only with what he assumed was supposed to be a couple of wire traps here and there.

“So, same set up as the previous room but with traps to make things more difficult.” He thought aloud for the kobolds benefit. “So, here’s what we’re going to do…”

---

The four goblins stood there holding their posts as they waited for the latest batch of adventurers as they likely did with every dungeon run. (Not that they can remember the other ones.)

Still as the doors to their room opened they expected a group of four Deviant adventurers to run in and attack them with their various abilities.

What they were not expecting was for a kobold from the floor below to come flying through the door and face plant less than a meter away from the warrior of the quartet.

The warrior glanced at the rogue who responded with a shrug before the both turned to the kobold whose foot was twitching in the air.

Figuring that their job was to attack whatever entered their room, the warrior made his way to the kobold and raised its sword for what would surely be a fatal strike. Only for the kobold to flip back onto its feet, shake its head, slowly look up at the attacking goblin, pale, and immediately turn face and run away while screaming. “Don’t kill me!”

The warrior glanced towards the rogue and received another shrug before the rogue made a ‘go get him’ kind of gesture.

Shaking his head with a sigh the warrior goblin followed after the fleeing kobold, an expression of exasperation on his face as he likely wondered why the rogue wasn’t doing this instead, given how the class was better suited towards pursuing and attacking a fleeing target.

Reaching the exit to the room, the warrior spotted the kobold cowering just a few meters into the hall. Now normally the dungeon dreams were supposed to stick to their various rooms, but given the way the kobold had entered the room in the first place -as well as the general disdain between goblins and kobolds- the goblin saw no problem in following after the kobold.

At least not until his world flipped upside down and found himself hanging by his ankle as six kobolds shot out from the darkness by the door and attacked the airborne goblin in a frenzy of claws, bone knives, and fangs.

From inside the room the rogue saw this and proceeded to curse before readying his bow with an arrow notched. An effort that was made futile as right before he released the arrow a knife flew from the shadows of the corridor, piercing the goblins hand and causing the arrow to fly wide.

The rogue goblin spat out another curse before glaring into the darkness just in time to see another knife flying from the darkness as the shamans began to chant their healing magics behind him.

Dodging to the side the rogue managed to avoid the knife, only to watch as it stabbed one of the shaman in their neck causing the other shaman to jump back in fright.

Of course this was the kind of mistake that could be expected of the simple dungeon constructs. Not the knife dodging, which was obviously a good thing, but rather the fact that the rogue had taken his eyes off of his enemies long enough for an arrow to fly from the darkness and shatter him into lights.

Down to two goblins this was when the seven kobolds rushed into the room, before swarming the undamaged shaman and leaving the injured shaman to try and heal his compatriot.

Not that he would let it.

With a casual ease he walked through the room and towards the injured shaman, an axe in hand as he hummed an easy tune.

The injured goblin watched as the other shaman was torn into a pile of dissolving lights by the kobold swarm, before suffering a similar fate as he brought down his axe in a decisive and brutal blow, likely similar in fashion to what the goblin warrior had intended for the baiting kobold.

“See you guys managed to take out half of the goblins without taking a single casualty.” Jon told the kobolds, wondering if helping one set of constructs kill another set made him hypocritical in some way.

The seven kobold began to cheer for him as he idly collected his knives and whatever things the dungeon creatures had dropped. (Let’s see… another trap, another potion, and from the looks of it two ears. Meaning if the pattern from the previous two floors holds then, a third of the way through and we already have enough for the mid-tier floor prize.)

By the time he’d gathered everything the girls and the rest of the kobold horde had just begun to trickle into the room.

“Huh, I had hoped we’d be able to catch at least the tail end of your fight.” Ying admitted walking over.

“Eh, the kobolds handled things pretty easily once they actually had a plan to work with.” He shrugged before turning to Roxanne and gesturing to the room’s two doors. “Is this the fork thing you were talking about?”

“Yep.” The other teen nodded. “Right door takes us to the boss room and the left will take us to the treasure room.”

“Got it in that case, I guess we need to get the horde moving this way.” He told them, barely taking a step towards the right door before Roxanne stopped him.

“Uh, I said the treasure room is that way?”

“Yeah, and the next floor is this way.” He reminded her.

“I know that.” Roxanne told him slowly. “But we need to head the other way for the treasure.”

“But the next floor is this way.” He repeated before elaborating that, “given how easy the last few floors have been, we really should go to the harder levels.” (Where there’s hopefully something worth hunting.)

The gamer teen looked at him like he’d killed a puppy. (Which I’d never do.) “But, but… treasure!”

“And we don’t need it?” He pointed out.

Roxanne made a sound similar to a dying animal.

Not understanding what the problem was, he turned to an amused looking Ying and asked, “Am I uh, missing something here?”

“I believe Roxanne wants to go collect the treasure chest.” Ying explained.

“Why?”

“Because that’s what you’re supposed to do in a dungeon!” Roxanne practically screeched.

“I kind of doubt that.” He frowned. “I mean if the GM wanted us to go a specific way, we’d have to go that way wouldn’t we?”

“Well, that’s… You’re supposed to want to collect all of the loot!” Roxanne yelled.

“But we don’t need it.” He pointed out once more.

“I- Gah- Ying talk some sense into him!”

Chuckling to herself, Ying stepped between the two of them. “Alright, Roxanne wants to explore the treasure room to collect all of the ‘loot’. While Jon, you want to go to the next floor for a better fight, right?”

“Well… sort of?” He admitted, while not wanting to admit he wanted to pick a fight with something. (Because picking fights with people is wrong.)

“Now, the way I see it we have three true options.” Ying told them. “We can take a detour to collect the treasure, we can skip the treasure to go to the next floor, or we can split the party with one half collecting the treasure and one half clearing the boss, before reuniting near the shop.”

“Ugh, you never split the party!” Roxanne disagreed. “The GM gives you a debuff if you break that cardinal rule!”

“Is it a permanent debuff?” He asked curiously.

“Er, no… It’s more of a warning to make people stay together.” The gamer teen explained.

“Is the debuff enough to keep us from clearing this floor?” He pressed on for the sake of giving each option its proper consideration. “I mean, earlier you were complaining about us beating everything so easily.”

“That’s… well…” Roxanne frowned. “It wouldn’t stop us… I guess…”

“Then if you want the treasure, splitting our party is likely the best bet.” He concluded.

Roxanne ran a hand down her face before eventually groaning out a “Fine!” and asking, “How’re we going to split the party though?”