I woke up to the sound of voices and saw the rest of my team preparing breakfast. After quickly packing up my bedroll I joined them around the fire.
“Morning, everyone,” I said as I grabbed a bowl of oats and dried fruit from Gary.
“Hey, Eli. I know I said we would head deeper today, but I wanted to make sure everyone feels confident that we can handle it,” he replied after I started eating. I looked around curiously to see what everyone else would say, I knew my answer.
“The least this dungeon can give us is a dungeon core,” Aaron grinned.
“I’m getting incredible experience in Empowered Strike, and I can upgrade it at level five. Just stay behind me!” Zack thumped his chest and I laughed.
“As long as Eli can cast Barkskin before a fight, we should be fine,” Gabrielle said with a smile towards me. “Still, though, these monsters are strong, we can’t underestimate them.
“These monsters are strong, but when we fight them we improve so quickly, every day we wake up stronger than the next. Let’s keep getting stronger,” I said determinedly. The more we had fought together, the more I trusted my team to make it through every fight we ran into.
“Good. Let’s see if we can reach the end of the dungeon today,” Gary said. We quickly finished eating and headed back towards the second room of the dungeon. After a short walk through the tunnel, we entered the rocky path through the next chamber cautiously.
“It’s back,” Gary warned us back as we entered the area where we had fought the elemental the day before.
“Looks like just the regular Rock Elemental that was here, yesterday” Gary peeked his head around the rock blocking our view ahead. “Let’s try to overwhelm it before it can turn towards us. Gabrielle cast a Meteor, then Aaron can cast a few Drill Shots right after. I’ll Charge forward and try to end it while it’s downed, but come to support me when you can, Zack.” Everyone nodded seriously as he detailed our plan of attack and we quickly moved into position after I cast Barkskin on all of us.
“Meteor,” Gabrielle’s spell forming behind me was my signal to start jogging towards the elemental in the distance and I barely glanced up as the monster was consumed in flames. Three arrows slammed into the elementals shoulder and the kneeling monster felt flat onto its stomach as soon as the flames cleared.
“Snaring Roots, Snaring Roots,” I cast twice and sent roots shooting up around the elementals shoulders to keep it locked on the ground.
Snaring Roots has reached level 2
I ignored the notification as Gary shot off the last few meters to the elemental and started stabbing at the core of the monster with the aid of his skills. By the time I and Zack arrived, the core was shattered.
“Good work, looks like leveling Impale to seven made a difference,” I said with a grin to Gary. He laughed and gestured to the thick roots that still covered the elemental.
“Did you level Snaring Roots?” he asked with a smile and I nodded cheerfully. With the knowledge that the room would reset itself, we moved forwards to the next two elementals. We were able to defeat the Crystal Elemental easier than the day before, although it did use a new skill during the fight. The monster sent a pulse through the ground like we had seen the other elementals do, except this one caused crystal spikes to erupt all around the ground. Thankfully, none of us got hit by that skill, although most of us took a hit from the crystal shards it sent towards us.
The Fire Elemental was a challenging fight, again, but we handled it without any serious injuries. Meteor wasn’t very effective against the elemental so the fight ended up with us taking a good amount of the painful rocks and burning liquid from the monster. After a break to cast Rejuvenation on everyone and recover our Essence we began moving further down the path.
“Back,” Zack waved at us from where he carefully looked around the edge of a rock blocking the path ahead. “Three of them look like one of each type of elemental.”
“Three of them?” Gabrielle asked worriedly and Zack nodded with a grimace.
“I think we should turn back,” Gabrielle shook her head at the path ahead.
“It’s no harder than the first chamber,” Aaron said. “As long as we can take the rock elemental down quickly, we can handle two at once.”
“The first chamber we had to run through?” I asked with a small smile. “Gabrielle’s right, I don’t think we should risk it.”
“We can train on the elementals up to this point, for now?” Zack suggested.
“That’s what I was going to propose, Zack. If we can clear up till this point and leave the dungeon, I’m pretty sure it will all respawn if we give it time.” Gary said. “We might be able to beat this next room, but there’s no need to risk it when we have already had a perfect place to train,” Gary gestured back to the path behind us. “Let’s head back to the first chamber and see if we can clear it, now.” We began the hike back to the beginning of the dungeon and I found myself looking forward to trying the first room again. I had been thinking the last night that it would be a great place to train our Skills if we didn’t clear out the dungeon.
When we arrived back at the first chamber a couple of hours later the room was empty, like when we had first seen it. We headed directly for the larger elementals and crushed four of them before they could grow and begin moving. Like our previous attempt, we quickly started to get overwhelmed and had to retreat out of the dungeon after managing to kill only one more of the larger elementals. After leaving the dungeon we decided to camp for the rest of the night and we would attempt the first room again, tomorrow.
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We spent the next week challenging the first room as many times as the dungeon would allow us to. After our first full day of fighting in the large chamber, we realized that the dungeon would need a few hours to reset the room entirely and we only entered the dungeon three times each day. Zack suggested we try out a defensive strategy on our third day and we were able to destroy all eight of the first rock elementals that spawned in the room, but crystal elementals began spawning while we fought those, and we were still forced to retreat out of the dungeon.
By the end of the week we were fighting the third wave of fire elementals on every attempt at the room and despite us not having progressed we were all happy with the training the dungeon provided us. Snaring Roots had improved to the point where an elemental would be locked in place by one cast, which allowed Gary or Zack to easily kill the elementals.
Eli - Lvl 5 Druid
Experience - 3110\10000
Strength-11
Dexterity-12
Perception-10
Vitality-11 (+1)
Spirit-14 (+1)
Willpower-13 (+1)
Barkskin - Level 8\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 5820\12800
Thornbolt - Level 6\20 Upgradeable
Experience - 3060\6400
Rejuvenation - Level 5\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 2910\3200
Snaring Roots - Level 4\10 (+2) Upgradeable
Experience - 12\1600
All of us had managed to level a few of our stats and skills during the week, as well as advance nearly a third of the way to level six. Although none of us had made huge increases in our strength, the week of fighting sharpened our teamwork and gave us time to grow used to our improved capabilities from reaching E-rank. I was confident that we would clear the first room, today.
“All right, everyone,” I looked down on the empty chamber below us as I listened to Gary. “Same strategy as yesterday, split up, destroy the first wave of rock elementals and then move as a group to deal with all of the lesser elementals before we retreat to the entrance and hold our position.” I nodded confidently in return and moved to cast Barkskin on all five of us before I would rush one of the larger spawns, alone. With my spirit leveling recently the five casts of Barkskin left me with about two-thirds of my Essence, and I would have to use it sparingly throughout the fight.
Gary waited for me to finish my last cast of Barkskin before he gestured down at the chamber below us, “Go!” I rushed down across the room and ignored the smaller elementals as they formed around me. After a short sprint, I arrived at the rapidly growing elemental and I quickly destroyed the core with a few spear strikes. I glanced across the room as I deflected a few of the smaller projectiles the lesser elementals were sending towards me and saw the rest of the team moving to their second elementals. I moved to support Aaron and Gabrielle by clearing out some of the smaller elementals attacking them while my team destroyed the last three of the rock elementals.
“Towards the tunnel,” Gary shouted. I disengaged from the group of lesser elementals and jogged towards the tunnel gratefully. The smaller projectiles they cast still hurt, even with Barkskin and my armor dulling most of the blows. There were close to fifty of the lesser elementals behind me and I grinned as I realized I had managed to destroy a fair amount more than our last attempt with this strategy. I reached the tunnel entrance and caught my breath while we waited for the slow-moving elementals to bunch up and reach us.
“Meteor,” Gabrielle cast after the large group of elementals caught up to us. Aaron had been shooting non-stop as they approached and managed to thin out their numbers a fair amount.
“Towards the left wall,” Gary said and we moved together through the remaining lesser elementals. I saved my Essence and struck at the closest elementals while we crossed the room towards the first of the crystal elementals. The elemental was nearly completely formed, but Gary cast a Piercing charge and dashed the last thirty meters towards it to destroy the core. We caught up to him shortly after and moved towards the next.
“It’s going to be a fight here on out, but we have to clear them quickly,” Gary said warningly. “We’ve got this.”
Aaron sent two Drill Shots into the crystal elemental as we approached and the elemental responded by casting its crystal shard spell. I dodged the quickly-forming shard with a jump to the side, I had been stabbed by more than one and I would rather not experience it again. Gabrielle started casting Fireballs one after another as Zack neared it.
“Empowered Strike,” Zack shattered the monster's core with a strike as I reached it. We quickly cleared out the last two elementals that formed on this side with another Piercing Charge by Gary and five Drill Shots by Aaron for the last one.
“Back to the tunnel entrance,” Gary said as soon as Aaron finished the last elemental from a distance. The other four crystal elementals were halfway across the room and we had learned from experience that we had to handle these with the safety of the tunnel at our backs. After a short jog to the tunnel entrance, I cast Barkskin on everyone, again. I had about half of my Essence remaining for the rest of the fight.
“Meteor,” Gabrielle cast another meteor towards the massed group of lesser elementals and I worked my way through a few of them with my spear, while the larger elementals approached. I was able to kill a few before Gary signaled me to fall back and I joined the rest of my team as we looked over the chamber ahead of us. Four of the crystal elementals were nearly within their range to shoot at us and the fire elementals were halfway formed along the other edge of the wall, although we had killed most of the lesser elementals and they had stopped respawning after the second wave.
“Start from the right, move!” Gary shouted as the first elemental raised its arm and sent a crystal shard towards us. I sprinted forwards with Zack and Gary as Aaron and Gabrielle sent skills shooting towards the elementals in front of us. I ran with my shield held in front of me and with my body crouched behind it as much as I was able.
“Snaring Roots,” I cast on the elemental as I neared it and sent roots as thick as my waist shooting up and locking into place around its waist, just below its core. Gary moved around to the monster's side and destroyed the core of the elemental with a cast of Impale as Zack and I blocked the other elementals with our shields in front of him. We used the same strategy for the next three elementals and then headed directly for the nearly formed fire elementals.
“Low on Essence,” I said as we jogged across the chamber. Gary and Zack nodded from beside me as we moved towards the nearly formed elementals.
“Clear as many of them as we can, then retreat to the tunnel,” Gary yelled out so everyone could hear him.
“I’ll try and destroy the furthest two, meet you at the entrance,” Aaron shouted before he split off to head deeper. I followed Gary as he led us to the first elemental and he efficiently destroyed the monster core with a cast of Impale. We reached the next one and Zack, Gary and I shattered the core while the monster finished forming and began to move. I looked over and saw that Aaron had managed to destroy the last two elementals, although I knew he had to be totally out of Essence, now.
“To the tunnel, we should have a minute before the last four reach us,” Gary said breathlessly as we cleared the last few of the lesser elementals who had been chasing us. Despite our increased stats, the prolonged battle was pushing all of us to make the most of our improved strength and I felt my muscles protest as I jogged the few hundred meters to the tunnel.
“Good job, everyone,” Gary said as we all rested on the wall. The four fire elementals were slowly walking towards us and we wouldn’t engage them until they got to the tunnel.
“We’ve got this,” I said. I was tired but I felt something pushing me to prove that I could surpass this challenge. I pushed myself off the wall and saw the rest of my team nod determinedly as they joined me by the tunnel entrance.