The visiting delvers stand on the wooden platform just inside of the second floor’s forest room. Mr. Stansible stares long and hard at the plateau across the way before sighing. “While it would be nice to get up there for the herbs that isn’t in the cards today. Plus, we don’t have any method of getting through the cliff. Weird as it sounds they weren’t lying when they told me the cliff won’t let anyone climb all the way with their stamina. We would need something like a stamina recovery potion or a method of flying to get around it. Plus, we aren’t exactly out of shape so we could end up climbing that thing for a long while.”
The butcher lady shrugs, “We aren’t exactly harvesting the herbs we have found so far, anyway. We don’t even have someone to harvest them in the first place. I’m our only person with any resource skills and they are all about animals, not plants.”
Mr. Stansible sighs, “I guess I knew that all, but that area is tempting. So much in one place.”
The dude taps his spear on the ground, “This won’t be the only time we delve the dungeon. Let’s just finish up as fast as possible so we can get back home.”
The guy with brass knuckles nods, “Not much we can do about it right now. Maybe by the time we get back someone will have a better way to climb the cliff. If anything, we can ask more about it.”
The other guy who had been using kicks, shakes his head, “We should at least have one of us give it a shot to check if there is more to it than we were told. But not until after we clear out the enemies in the room. I don’t want to be half way up that cliff only to get my rear pelted with rocks.”
Everyone else can agree with this, so they climb down the wooden stairs and enter the dense forest area. Of course the room isn’t too big and so the group soon come across the enemy kobolds. Though not before Jamie warns the group about the two mages.
Then the fighting happens. At the front this time is the dude with a spear. While the trees do a good job of preventing too wide of a swing, he can still hold back the herd of goats that charge at the group. At least long enough for the two guys to flank around to the kobolds.
The no brainer is to target the healer again, but with the additional kobolds the monsters can prevent the decapitation attack. They do not however manage to stop the literal decapitation of the ice mage as the butcher with her long-handled axe jumps down from the rise that used to house a kobold with a sling. Sadly for the monsters, Doyle had removed the slinger, leaving that side undefended.
Two of the club wielding kobolds turn away from the frontline to hold off the butcher lady. Not the best decision though as this leaves the goats completely unguided as the knife kobold is being sneaky and the other two female kobolds are already holding off the two martial arts guys. All the while the kobold healer is stressing out just keeping those directly defending it healed up.
This situation is not sustainable for the monsters, and soon enough all the goats have been defeated. Finished with what normally would be an area denial spell from Mr. Stansible. The spell lights up an area with searing rays of light. Most of the time this would not be so deadly, but the goats have already all been hurt over and over by the dude’s clever use of his short spear and Jamie’s use of his ability to freeze a goat for a moment. Enough that the monster can’t move for less than a second, but not enough to require any build up of power.
With the goats finished, this frees up the three of them to pile on the remaining five kobolds. And since four of them are already embroiled in the melee, there is nothing to stop the spear dude from a quick kill on the healer.
The four melee kobolds realize they have lost their healing and go crazy, swinging their weapons and diving at their targets. None of the delvers had expected that. In fact, not even Doyle and Ally far away in the core room had expected this result. Still, Mr. Stansible’s group aren’t a bunch of unblooded fools.
Even if they hadn’t expected this sort of result didn’t mean they weren’t at least half prepared for the un-expected. So with great effort, the martial arts guys and the lady with her axe can fend off the rabid attack. And seeing as the kobolds aren’t exactly defending themselves at the moment, the spear dude is quick to get in a handful of backstabs to finish the fight.
Jamie shakes his head and makes an odd gesture, “Well, that wasn’t in the report.”
The spear dude shrugs, “Since we know they didn’t lie about what was going on in here, the dungeon must have changed a little. Not that I believe the place is changing like they seem to think it is, but granting some monsters a new tactic isn’t exactly rocket science.”
Mr. Stansible nods, “Moving monsters around a little and changing up how they fight is well within the norm for dungeons this young. Honestly, I would not be surprised if they did not know about this change yet. Now I guess we should check out that cliff real quick. Any of you want to give it a quick climb?”
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The guy with brass knuckles raises his hand. Then from behind him the other martial arts guy kicks out and knocks his hand down while raising his own. Brass knuckles come flying at the second guy’s face, causing him to jump back. The two of them square off against each other, but before the fight can really begin an axe comes thudding down in between them.
The butcher rolls her eyes and lifts her axe back up. “We aren’t sending both of you up. If we did that, neither of you would stop. You over there, you seem grounded enough. I’ll hold your spear while you climb up. Just keep track of how much stamina you have and come back down when you have used about a third of it.”
The two guys complain about this, but a glare from Mr. Stansible stops them. All the while, the dude hands his spear over to the lady and proceeds over to the cliff. As the whole group watches him climb, everything seems normal at first. As he reaches the halfway point, it becomes obvious they hadn’t been lied to about the properties of the wall. The farther the dude climbs up, the less distance he seems to actually travel.
Quite disconcerting for the people on the ground. Eventually Mr. Stansible has had enough and shouts up, “Come on down. You aren’t actually making any headway and our stats it will take you a good long while to start feeling tired. We don’t need the herbs, so there is no point trying anything more.”
The dude looks back over his shoulder and is honestly surprised at how close to the ground he is. “All that effort only to get this far up? I can jump down from here and be fine.”
Mr. Stansible hears this and freezes the dude with a look that could peel paint. “You better not try that on my watch. Who knows if the distance you see will be all you fall. Maybe it makes you fall the actual distance you climbed and not just the physical distance. Now get down here.”
At his side Jamie perks up and taps him on the shoulder, “Sir, let’s back off and give him some room for him to come down.”
Mr. Stansible glances at Jamie, who gestures back at him. With a nod, Mr. Stansible motions for everyone to back off. The dude up on the cliff doesn’t really pay attention to this as he climbs down. At first there are a few hiccups as footholds and such he expects to be below him aren’t there, but soon enough he is back on the ground.
Then from a nearby tree away from the side that the rest of the group has retreated to a kobold wielding daggers bursts out. The distance is short between the two and it is almost upon him. Anyone who hadn’t expected the attack would be completely unable to react to it.
Of course, that means Jamie and Mr. Stansible both react right as the attack begins. Jamie unleashes his psionic abilities, which freezes the kobold steps away from the dude, causing it to fall over from being off balance. And Mr. Stansible follows this up with a ray of light coming down from above to fry the monster.
The dude jumps back and tries to grab his spear. This reaction while admirable doesn’t do much as the spear is still being held by the butcher. Then he runs into the cliff behind and gets the air knocked out of him.
Seeing this Jamie laughs, “Well that was a show!”
The dude looks over at him and frowns, “You both clearly knew that was going to happen. Why didn’t you stop it?”
Jamie shrugs, “While I can sense the general location of monsters and such, I need a much better lock on them to do my paralysis trick. That little sneak wouldn’t show itself, likely because we steamrolled the big fight so quickly. This was the perfect time to lure it out so that we wouldn’t leave any danger behind us if we have to retreat. Now let’s go and see what kind of loot we got at the main fight. This little side adventure should have given everything enough time to despawn.”
The dude is about to complain, but Mr. Stansible stops him, “I approved of his plan and do not pretend that you could not have defended yourself. You are on the team because you would not actually drop your guard like that. If that really was enough to catch you off guard, you can expect to not be joining my group in the future.”
While this was going on, the guy with brass knuckles had hopped over to the scene of the big fight and is rummaging around. Then he finds something and shouts back to the group, “Found a potion!”
That instantly distracts everyone from the argument. Mr. Stansible walks over and grabs the potion from him and takes a look at it. The potion is a bright red with metallic shimmers floating in it. He shakes the potion for a moment and observes as it settles. He sighs, “I was not planning to use this while here, but this potion could be helpful. [Observe]”
The potion glows and the blacks of Mr. Stansible’s eyes vanish for a moment. Then he shakes his head to clear it and starts to message his temple. “Supposedly the damn skill will be easier to use with more levels. But the info rush is way too much to use it often. I would love for us to find more potions like this, but I don’t think I can manage to use the skill again today.”
Jamie nods, “Mental abilities are such a strain. Anyway, what is it?”
Mr. Stansible holds up the potions, “This here is a flesh mending potion. Does everyone know how the three basic types work?”
The dude shrugs, “Not particularly.”
Mr. Stansible sighs, “Basic healing potions are not magical cure alls. They come in three varieties. Coagulants to stop all kinds of bleeding, including internal. Regeneration which grows back missing bits and pieces. Though of course for the basic one you will not be getting your arm back and rather is used when something takes a bite out of you or to replace all the blood you just lost before you could use the coagulants. Finally is flesh mending which we have right here. It can reconnect bits and pieces that might end up less than connected.”
The dude tilts his head to the side, “So like, if my arm is cut off?”
Mr. Stansible laughs, “You think something you can find on the second floor of a dungeon could do that? This is more in line with fixing strained muscles and twisted ankles. Maybe even fix up a hernia if you’re lucky.”