Zack was surprised when one of the first teams to book the manor room once it was open included someone he recognized. Seth E Ross made his grand return to Dungeon Inc, but wasn't accompanied by the same two friends as the first time. Instead, he was with two different people. The first was a dark skinned man dressed in tight leather armour, with daggers strapped to his hips and a bandolier of potions slung over his chest. The second was a woman in a loose shirt and pants. Instead of a weapon, she had a crystal-topped wand slung at her hip like a gun.
Even Seth was dressed more sensibly this time. Instead of his trilby hat, his long black hair was tied up in a pony tail. He still wore the same long black trench coat and fingerless gloves, but he wore armoured pants and a black leather cuirass over his chest. His impossibly long sword was still slung over his back.
Zack was silently grateful that Seth didn't try to flirt with Chandra again, but that didn't stop him from miming the act of tipping his fedora in greeting. A sharp elbow from his feminine companion stopped him from shoving his own feet in his mouth any further. As the logistics were handled, Zack quickly checked the two newcomers to see what they had to offer.
[Laura Cross]
[Human]
[Level 12]
[Thursday Smith]
[Human]
[Level 11]
Their basic stats roughly alligned with Zack's expectation on a quick skim, but their spells exceeded expectations. Laura, in particular, had a spell that made him giddy with anticipation.
[Light Bolt: Level 2]
[Spell, Light, Polarity Shifting, Healing]
[Fire a bolt of elemental light at a target. The polarity of the spell determines its effect.]
[Light-polarity: The spell will heal the target for a set amount.]
[Dark-polairty: The spell will harm the target for a set amount.]
[Mana Cost: 6]
As he perused her abilities, he grew more and more excited. Not only did she have a suite of healing powers, including the ability to purge curses, but she even had an elemental affinity for light! This made for the fourth elemental affinity Zack had ever encountered, and the second high element he would get to see in action. Not to mention, the first real healer he ever encountered.
Thursday, on the other hand, had far fewer combat oriented powers. Most of them involved conjuring different kinds of potions, which explained the bandolier around his chest.
Once Seth paid their fee and everyone signed the necessary waivers, Jean-Claude happily led them toward the newly opened manor wing. Laura thanked the kobold with a head pat, before the trio stepped in and the door clicked shut behind them. Zack decided that this was a run worth watching, and left a wisp in the lobby in case somebody needed to talk to him. For now, he wanted to sit back and observe the run.
"Okay, Seth. You've done this before. Why don't you give us the rundown on what we can expect?" Thursday asked. He extracted a bright red potion from his belt with one hand, and device that looked a lot like a dart gun with the other. Zack watched as he calmly loaded the potion vial into the weapon and pulled back on the pump with the other.
"Ooooh, I bet he uses that to administer his potions from a distance," Zack mused to himself.
"I've never done this room before. Last time I ran this dungeon, there was only the meadow," Seth informed his team. "But the meadow was super easy, I don't expect this one to be much harder."
Thursday frowned, his golden eyes flashing dangerously. A hand on his shoulder from Laura stopped him from saying anything too mean.
"That just means we get to experience this for the first time without any spoilers," Laura said, stepping in to mediate before the two men could butt heads. "Seth, why don't you lead the way?"
Seth nodded and unslung his sword. "Don't laugh at me," he ordered. Before Zack could wonder why, Seth started singing a familiar song again. "Come, o' come, death by my blade…"
"Oh good God, he's singing his theme song again?" Zack was about to harshly judge the peculiar swordsman, when something caught his metaphoric eye. Mana in the air was shifting around Seth as he sang, coalescing around his still-sheathed blade. Was that a spell? Zack quickly pulled up Seth's known spell list, and what he saw made him gawk.
[Aria of the Blade: Level 5]
[Spell, Song]
[Sing a song about the power of your sword, empowering your next strike. The longer and more vigorously you sing, the more powerful your strikes become.]
[Level 3 Upgrade: If you end the song with a flourish, all blade strikes you've landed on enemies within five meters repeat.]
[Level 5 Upgrade: If you sing the song with your blade sheathed, your next strike empowers faster.]
[Cost: 3 to 9 mana. Cost and potency increases with each verse, to a maximum of three times base potency.]
Zack stared at the spell description in a mixture of awe of a horror. Unlike the others, who had a suite of different abilities, most of Seth's levels had gone into upgrading this one peculiar spell. He had a few others, though most of them were dedicated to mobility and, oddly enough, breathing.
[Flash Step: Level 2]
[Spell, Movement]
[Move forward, up to five meters, in the blink of an eye.]
[Cost: 2 mana]
[True Breath: Level 3]
[Spell, Discipline, Passive]
[You are a master of breathing, allowing you to keep your body supplied with oxygen even during strenuous activity.]
[Level 3 Upgrade: You can maintain your breathing even while speaking or performing other actions that would normally require breathing out.]
[Sharpen: Level 2]
[Spell, Enhancement]
[Run your fingers over a blade, sharpening it.]
[Cost: 2 mana]
"Oh, he gained a couple levels since his last run," Zack noted, having glossed over Seth's current stats in favour of his abilities. Still, he found it rather odd to see so many levels condensed into so few abilities. Deepening one's connection to the Akashic System was supposed to bestow new powers, but Seth had instead focused on honing a select few abilities instead.
It made sense in the long run. Instead of learning new powers, instead he was focusing on mastering a select handful to maximize their potency. It at least seemed to be paying off, since levelling them up was bestowing those powers with new abilities. It also explained how and why Seth was able to sing while moving and fighting.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Zack idly wondered about who these three really were while they started making their way down the first of the manor's many hallways. A trio of foul-smelling slimes blocked their path forward, but instead of lunging for them, Seth stepped aside to allow Laura to deal with them herself.
Laura raise her wand over her head, gathering light into its tip before pointing it at their foes. Gold and purple energy erupted from the ground beneath the slimes, sending one shooting into the air and the other two recoiling back. Seeing his opportunity to strike, Seth blurred. In the blink of an eye, he was standing behind the two recoiling slimes, his sword already drawn and in the motion of being sheathed.
"Seth E Ross," he sang, finishing the aria while sheathing his blade.
The two slimes didn't even know what hit them, as suddenly they were cleaved in two. A perfectly horizontal slash appeared across both slimes, the black goo held back by their membrane erupting like a geyser from their bodies. The two monsters deflated to nothing, while the third jiggled in mid-air before splatting back on the ground.
Thursday didn't give it the chance to get back up. He extracted a potion from his bandolier and tossed it underhand into the mass. The glass bottle shattered on impact, splashing bright blue goo all over the monster. In seconds, the slime's membrane melted away to nothing, and it joined its deceased bretheren.
"Slimes? Really? Come on, that's such basic fodder," Thursday grunted in disappointment, resting his dart gun on his shoulder. "We've been fighting slimes since our first year."
"Training is training, Thursday," Laura reminded him.
"The whole reason I agreed to this is because Seth promised we would get some real action, not the lame crap we deal with training," Thursday retorted.
Zack mentally sneered as he put the pieces together. These three must be university students studying magic, or adventurers in training. That explained their higher levels, as well as Thursday's attitude towards Zack's mobs. Determined not to get insulted, Zack patiently watched as they made their way around the corridor. They paused at each door, but was frustrated to discover each one was locked. Seth tried to break them down, but Zack anticipated such a reaction during the construction process. The walls and doors were already reinforced with mana to keep such behaviour from being rewarded.
Still, Seth's magically enhanced strike left a deep gouge in the wooden door, something Zack knew he'd need to fix before the next group came in and tried the same.
Seth's group opted for the go loud approach for the manor wing, which meant they unfortunately ended up skipping all the side rooms as they explored. If they had bothered to do any actual investigation upon entering the manor, they would have found the open room near the entrance that contained a small key. Instead, they were satisfied to rampage through the slimes and bats populating the main corridor.
The bats actually proved to be more of a challenge for the trio than the slimes, since Seth couldn't reach them consistently with his blade. Thursday finally had a moment to shine, unloading his potion-filled dart gun. Whenever a glass bottle hit a wall or enemy, it shattered and showered the area in a magical effect.
Zack attempted to absorb the potion, but was surprised by what he saw.
[You have failed to learn Wild Magic Potion.]
[Warning: This is a conjured item. Your ability to learn this recipe is reduced.]
[Recipe: Wild Magic Potion]
[A flask of liquid aether. The effect of this potion varies wildly, and is difficult to predict.]
"That explains why it keeps doing random stuff," Zack thought, as one of his bats was suddenly struck by a bolt of lightning from a stray potion explosion.
It took the group longer to clear the aerial enemies, what with one of their primary damage dealers being unable to consistently help. Seth stood off to the side, quietly singing his aria to maintain the energy charge in his sword. Even through the scabbar, the ridiculously long blade glowed with red energy. It was going to be a monster of a strike when he finally unleashed it.
At the end of the hallway, the group found themselves standing before a pair of open doors—the first set they encountered since the beginning of their run through the wing. Inside, they could clearly see a skeleton sitting before a roaring fire, the trophies of various animals hanging above the fireplace.
The boss that wasn't really a boss. Zack had pulled out all the stops for this fight. He didn't want to dedicate a flag to it, since he only had one boss flag to spare until level fifteen, and the one for the manor was dedicated to the real boss, the one this group had unintentionally missed. Still, he was certain this fight would give them a run for their money.
"Boss room?" Thursday asked, eyebrow raised curiously.
Seth nodded mid-verse, gripping his sheathed sword tightly.
"Probably the skeleton," Laura noted.
"If it's a true undead, it will have to be afflicted by the undeath curse. Laura, can you purge it and give us an easy win?" Thursday asked.
Laura pursed her lips. "Maybe? It's hard to tell with monsters. The spell requires I physically touch the target, but they also need to consent to having their curse purged. Most monsters aren't intelligent enough to consent."
Zack very quickly ordered the non-boss skeletons to always consent to curse removal. It wasn't a requirement that he knew existed when he made them, but he had purposely engineered those enemies with the status for a reason. He wasn't about to invalidate the realism of the experience by making his mobs immune to such an effect. Healers and people with those abilities should be rewarded for them, not punished. He did, however, order the monster in this room not to consent to curse removal ever.
"I'm not letting you get it that easily," Zack chuckled. "Flag or not, this is still a boss fight."
Seth was the first to step into the room, still singing his theme song. "Glory, glory, glorious! Blade of vengeance, glorious!"
As the others followed after him, the skeleton rose from its chair to meet them. Rather than draw a weapon, though, it stood with its arms outstretched. Just as Thursday and Laura stepped into the room, the bearskin rug stood up off the floor and started wrapping itself around the skeleton.
The sudden shift was enough to break Seth's concentration, and his song faltered. It was only for a second, but the moment was enough to end the enhancement on his blade. Aether stopped filtering through the weapon, bleeding out into the air for Zack to greedily absorb.
"Oh," Thursday blinked in surprise, fumbling with his potions to find the right one for the job.
Zack giggled eagerly. What had moments ago been a humanoid skeleton now looked more like an undead berserker. The bearskin draped across its arms and legs, the bear's face draped over the skull. Its fang-filled jaw hung open and let out a bestial bellow of challenge, while the skeleton's hands slipped into the bear's paws to wield them like a weapon.
[Shaman of the Skin]
[Level 14 Undead]
[A undead shaman able to wield the powers of animals long deceased, as long as it is within range of their pelt.]
Zack was rather proud of this flavour text. He didn't actually have the ability to bestow such abilites on the mob, but it wasn't like bears had real powers to begin with. They were just big, strong, and ornery. Most of the animals stuffed and mounted in the trophy room matched that description, too. The only exception was Thumper's head mounted over the fireplace. The shaman had many of the same spell nodes as Archie and Thumper, so it sold the illusion that it was drawing abilities from the stuffed animal heads around the room.
To even further sell that illusion, Zack had engineered a puzzle element to this fight. The more stuffed trophies adventurers destroyed, the weaker the shaman would get. Again, he wanted to reward creative thinking and problem solving with the manor, and this was one of the best ways he could think of. The shaman wouldn't literally get weaker, but Zack had ordered it to behave like it was for each trophy destroyed. Destroying Thumper's head would disable some of his powers, too.
The momentary stun of seeing the monster finally wore off, and Laura was the first to take charge. She pointed her wand at the shaman and fired a beam of searing golden light. The skeleton stepped to the side to avoid the attack, and took that as permission to begin engaging.
Seeing as how the healer had just pulled the boss, Seth stepped in to intervene. He didn't have a chance to start up his aria again, and had to parry massive ursine claws with his scabbard. Nails bit into the wooden sheath with a loud thunk, the strength of the blow enough to drive Seth to one knee.
"A little help please, m'lady?" Seth grunted. Despite the exertion, his breathing was still calm and even, his passive ability in full swing.
Laura didn't roll her eyes at Seth's use of language, and launched another beam of golden light his way. This time, her aim was slighty off. Rather than aim directly for the shaman, the spell collided with Seth's shoulder. To Zack's surprise, part of the spell actually glanced off Seth's coat and splashed against the shaman. Wherever the golden light hit, the skeleton started sizzling.
"Oooooh, that's creative," Zack giggled in delight.
Not one to be out done, Thursday loaded a fresh potion into his launcher and dropped to one knee. He stared down the barrel, taking aim through the plastic sights, before pulling the trigger. A flask of red liquid shot out, shattering against the bear pelt.
As the skeleton reared up for another strike, Zack quickly absorbed the potion, and was delighted to receive an upgraded topical healing potion for his trouble. It wasn't a conjured one, either, but a properly mixed brew. He happily added it to his roster of recipes, and leaned back to watch the show.
"I need space to start my aria," Seth hissed, shoving against the shaman with all his might. "Can you guys get this thing off me?"
"This is what you get for focusing on powers that let you finish fights in one strike," Laura said. "A versatile powerset would be far more useful in fights where you can't prepare ahead of time."
"Less talking, more blasting. M'lady," Seth added, vainly trying to maintain a veneer of being polite and nice.
Laura did roll her eyes this time. She charged her spell and let it fly, this time striking the shaman dead in the chest. The skeleton let out an ursine bellow of surprise, staggering backward as the restorative magic chewed through the pelt and bone both.
Finally with enough space to begin, Seth held his sword at his side and started singing. “Burning inside with violent anger. Fate—monstrous and empty. Come, o' come, death by my blade.”
Once again, power started coalescing down Seth's sword. Rather than charge it for the full verse, he lunged forward in a blur of speed. Steel rang as he extracted the ridiculously long sword, slashing with crimson energy.
"Seth E Ross," he finished, sheathing the blade once again.
This time, Zack got to watch as the flourish effect of the aria occured. A clean line right across the skeleton's neck appeared in a flash of crimson aether, cleaving the shaman's head from his shoulders. The bearskin rug was equally decapitated, the strike more than it could reasonably bear.
Zack stared in bewilderment and mild disappointment as the shaman crumpled into a pile of bones. Sighing in defeat, he spawned a wisp in the room to play a victory fanfare, as well as a chest full of wooden tokens.