They didn't understand when they felt the breeze wash across each of them. The only the armored man stumbled a bit from the increasing pressure, while the rest just held still for a bit until it passed. Then, one by one their stealth covers dropped and a range of curses were whispered out causing the man to turn around to look at them in confusion.
"Get back into stealth!" He half-shouted and half-whispered, waving his hands at them, and noticing that his own stealth was gone now, "And get me back in mine, we don't have much time!" This time he did shout, his fears coming forward as the others glared at him.
"We wouldn't have dropped them if we could help it, but I keep getting an error message saying that I am being actively marked and tracked." One of the men said to him, not bothering to lower his voice, "Clearly there must be a rule about stealth or something here too..." Everyone knew that a room could have one rule and so could the whole floor leading to a max of two conditions. Though usually they didn't just show up after you were into a floor.
"Looks like our easy trip turned into a brawl, at least here." The armored form shrugged, deciding it wasn't worth getting too worked up over in this place. Had to keep his cool about it all, but the suddenness of the change had shaken him a bit. From the look of his teammates they were equally shaken or annoyed with the situation. Stealth had always been a strong tactic in all engagements for them, and it was very rare to find a place where it was blocked.
"I am going to be far less useful." The woman said, her full form now visible, a long face with wolf features dominated. Though the rest of her body was covered in a darkened, and studded, leather armor with stripes of a lighter color. She spun a dagger in her palm while looking around, "I think we have some company on it's way too, but whatever is stopping me from using [Sneak] is also stopping my other Rogue class skills." The armored form pulled his sword from his hip and the shield from his back, each of the others also preparing for anything.
"That limits us for damage on this floor at least. Standard spread, watch for burrowers, this place seems to use ants." The man said, lifting his shield up to be able to block towards any direction. Like they were waiting for it series of loud cracks and explosions of rock happened all around. Dust flew into the air limiting vision and the team pulled together using their items to locate one another. The healer, a bird type Beastkin, spun while swinging out with his banded staff at a large, black ant head. They got out of the way just in time for another one to attack from the side where a pair of fists slammed into it. Causing the second one to tumble into the first one, and ending in a pileup. While another of the creatures clamped onto the armored man's shield, and two were trying to grab the quick moving woman.
"[Shock]!" The monk called out, his furred fists lashing out at one of the two on the ground sending a pulse of energy into it, and cooking it from the inside. While a strange smell filled the air, the other one on the ground swept out with it's pincers in an attempt to catch him during his attack.
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"[Monkey Stance]!" He yelled again, managing to jump above the pincers and flip himself off them to punch down towards the head.
"[Shock]!" The shout a second later ended the life of the second creature. Turning he saw that two other creatures were dead, one with a pair of daggers buried into it's skull, and the other with a large shield crushed through it. The last was chasing the wolf-kin, who seemed to be toying with it at this point. The monk ran forwards and landed a roundhouse kick to one of it's legs as it stepped forward. Using it's own momentum and his own to amplify the force leading to a snap and the leg flying off the body. This unbalanced the creature who was the size of a wagon, and it wobbled to one side opening it up to another.
"[Shock]!" and the creature twitched a few times before falling limp. The woman looked over at him with a grin.
"Knew you would come to my aid, my big strong monkey." Causing the monk to roll his eyes, out of stealth and in open fighting she was always like this. The armored man slammed his fist on his shield causing a loud sound to carry to them all. It was a signal they had all been conditioned to respond to, and immediately headed over to him in a line.
"We cannot be so carefree, stealth is out, so keep on your toes. Banter is banned until we get to the floor stairs." He thundered at them, lifting his shield out of the corpse before motioning them all to follow him. The others shared a quick look before the healer cast [Renew] on them all, increasing their regeneration for a while. It wasn't fast but it would keep their mana and health topped off for these shorter fights. It was important to conserve mana since Healing classes rarely got skills that gave them mana or regeneration, and were often immune to effects that would do so. While highly desired in all groups they were weak by nature, no matter how much they trained their body. This healer was an example of that, his robes hid the smooth fur but not the clear feline features or the bulging muscles he had trained for years. Yet, he would still lose to anyone with a martial class like the monkey-kin who looked more like a branch.
These ants were strong for their level, while it couldn't be read by them, they all felt it was around 15 to 20. The concern was that five of the beast were in that group which would mean that could be the high number per group or an average. Putting the boss at almost twice the level even though there shouldn't be a boss on each floor. The Shaman had confirmed that there was some kind of Elite or Boss monster in each floor with six of them on the fourth or fifth floors. So, they were prepared for one such creature here, and the Shaman had told them that the beasts became smarter on each floor. As if the weaker variants were being pushed up, and the stronger and smarter ones remaining deep below. They were under no illusions that they would get to the room the Shaman died in, but they were supposed to reach the puzzle room with the engravings to take notes and then escape.
The rogue fingered the little figurine of the praying angel in her sleeve pocket. The Shaman said these dungeon rewarded items would teleport anyone from the domain of a dungeon instantly when used. It was there get out of dungeon free card, though she was starting to have doubts about them. While the Shaman had been right about the challenge of this place and it's creatures. He hadn't been correct about the floor layout, which means other things could have changed since then. Perhaps the dungeon had a counter measure for these [Escape Idols]? The thought of being stuck down here or eaten by those creatures filled her with dread. She would escape even if the others didn't, but she wouldn't move unless she had too.