Jake and his crew awaited before the boss room doors, weapons ready. The moment these doors opened, a great opportunity might present itself to them. Whether it was a victorious but weakened boss ready to be finished for easy Exp, or a victorious but weakened delving party, ready to be ganked for easy loot. It all depended on how long the doors remained closed. The longer it took, the more likely it was a close call.
His men knew it and also knew not to rush inside before they knew what they were dealing with.
But when the doors opened not two minutes after closing, he shouted, "halt!" A chill ran up Jake's spine. It was too soon. That couple seemed too experienced and that rabbit-wolf winged chimera reminded him of a monster the Lord's son had hunted two months ago. It was in their eyes. These eyes weren't the impressionable eyes of delving novices. Nor the frightened or the delusional eyes of someone going way over their heads. No. The eyes on that couple had a burning hatred for the Dungeon, a wariness often seen in delving veterans.
As the mist quickly vanished, Jake saw the four of them staring back at him.
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"I understand you were spawn camping," I said in a challenging tone, "but to think you were also gank camping. The Guild will love to hear it."
The provocation was intentional. If these guys were going to be trouble, it was better to deal with them now rather than worry about them stalking us on the fourth floor.
My mental Attributes, especially Wisdom and Charisma, gave me an injection of confidence. I cringed inside when I remembered I was about to skip town because Alice hinted that he knew about my Parallel Progression.
These guys were seasoned delvers, with years of experience. Yet here I was, still wet behind the ears, challenging them. It was a kind of experience that could inebriate a person and make one think they were more than one's peers.
It was the trap that killed Hector.
"We don't want trouble," I said before anyone could take action. "We are going to test the waters on the fourth, you can stay here and farm the boss to your satisfaction. Do you have any plans of descending? Also, do you know if anyone is on the fourth?"
"No, sir. We've been here for two weeks, and didn't see a soul passing by."
It could be a lie. These guys probably killed people down here. The Dungeon was the perfect evidence and garbage disposal. But it wasn't my problem.
It would be nice if people were polite and respected each other's right to live. But the Dungeon combined the lure of power with the temptation of greed. Top that with an uncaring System and what you got was humanity's worst impulses set loose.
"Okay. We are descending now. Stay safe." Translation: stay on the third floor.
"Sure thing, sir!" The guy almost saluted.
We went down. They didn't attack us from behind.
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On the fourth floor, we put a lot of distance between the stairs and us. I didn't hear any sounds of combat but that could be misleading.
Still, for the sake of alacrity, I let William loose and gave him carte blanche to go after the monsters.
He quickly found the first pack. The fourth-floor denizens were the Flametail Skunks. Just by the name one could see why this floor wasn't popular. The vicious beasts used innate Fire and Light magic, could wreath themselves on fire, and had a stench attack that almost always made people lose their lunch.
We planned for this. Alchemists on the surface developed a cleaning tincture called El Diablo's Cologne, that could cleanse a creature of all scents, smells, odors, and stench with just a few drops.
It was expensive but well worth it.
William went invisible. As the skunks became wary of us, William appeared behind them. His eyes glowed and he charged, goring the first skunk pair despite their HP, one on each horn. With a flick of his head, the two monsters splattered against the tunnel wall.
> For killing level 33 Flametail Skunk, you gained 124 Experience points.
> For killing level 35 Flametail Skunk, you gained 187 Experience points.
Then the Silver-Eyes Phantom Thief Tityron became a blur. With William's evolution he not only gained more Attributes but each point of those Attributes also meant more. His base form was stronger, faster, and way tougher than a normal Tityron. The other four Skunks were no match for William's evolved speed. They were dead before they could clench their butt cheeks and squirt their noxious secretions on him. Or us.
> For killing level 33 Flametail Skunk, you gained 124 Experience points.
> For killing level 32 Flametail Skunk, you gained 99 Experience points.
> For killing level 31 Flametail Skunk, you gained 79 Experience points.
> For killing level 34 Flametail Skunk, you gained 156 Experience points.
We moved on. When we met the next group, I killed them with arrows before they could move ten meters from their starting point. It netted me two bonus Experience points per shot because each was a kill. The third pack had only three skunks. Kara wanted to get these herself. She had to train her Stealth skill, anyway. She skulked toward the skunks and shanked two with her long daggers, then kicked the third away. As the monster ignited and spewed the vile pheromone, she tossed both daggers at it and then jumped away.
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I finished it and the other two with my arrows. We split the Experience.
"I didn't get hit!" She cheered.
We moved away from that spot as the pheromone was not only an insult to our nostrils but would also draw lots of skunks. From now on, we had to be careful because the smell would put every monster on this floor on high alert. If we managed to reach the boss's room, it would work in our favor because it was a great deterrent against pursuers.
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When we reached the boss room, we knew we would go down to the fifth. Nobody was camping in the antechamber and the few tracks I could spot were months old. We peeked inside the boss room. It was a mad necromancer's laboratory, with a huge creature on top of a metal altar. Roughly humanoid, we could only see its clawed feet and the general contour from where we stood. It had over twelve feet of height, judging by those feet and the proportions of the altar. Around the room, implements whose function I could only guess were haphazardly spread around the many workbenches and the walls, along with vials of strange fluids; everything was covered in dust and cobwebs. The ground was littered with broken pots, glass shards, and sharp pieces of metal bent in odd ways.
It would remain so if we didn't intrude into its room. The doors to the boss room were decorated with skulls. Never a good sign. The room was also cramped and the monster wouldn't need more than four steps to reach anywhere from that altar.
Close quarters with all these hazards and a creature that was obviously as tough as it was strong were factors we wouldn't want in one of our fights.
"At what level do you think the boss is?" Kara asked.
"Anywhere between fifty and seventy."
"We can take it," She said with an odd confidence. "Between William and I, we can tank the boss while you and Sleepy take it down."
Boss fights were to the death. Once those doors closed, you were only getting out either victorious or if you were strong enough to break Dungeon Walls. Like Alice was. But this Dungeon and the Wild one were in totally different categories. This one was old, with more than ten floors. Nobody knew how deep it went because people were only allowed to delve down to the tenth floor. Anyone attempting to go down to the eleventh would see the full wrath of the Dungeon. The Wild Dungeon was an infant with three floors. Nobody wanted to see what this one could do.
"Since the monster seems to be undead, I'm going to use my Holy Arrows. I don't think it will hold aggro. It all depends on how smart it is."
"Okay," Kara said, preparing her equipment, "Let's go!"
Since all of her gear was destroyed in the Wild Dungeon, she bought a set of enchanted half-plate armor from Haru. The shield was also enchanted with deflection and general debuff protection.
I couldn't deny her determination. If this was where we died, then so be it. We would die fighting side by side. But in all honesty, maybe this was a boss William could solo by himself. I wouldn't let him go alone, though.
"Let's charge, then!"
We ran side-by-side and had to leap forward as the doors slammed shut right as we crossed the threshold. A tub hidden in the ceiling turned, splashing the boss with a green liquid.
"Trap!" I shouted.
Kara was the slowest person among us and she was four times faster than a normal woman. We all moved to the edges of the room, trying not to step on any of the debris on the floor. We avoided being splashed with the liquid but it gave the boss time to awaken and sit up.
It was a deformed undead, without skin. Corded sinew linked the bones and exposed muscle like badly burnt scar tissue. It didn't have eyes, or dark cavities that went deep into its skull. The teeth were needle-like. Cartilaginous flesh covered its forearms and legs like gauntlets and greaves. The same claws we saw on the feet were also on the hands. Silver orbs were all over its body and also on stalks across its back. Two big ones on his shoulders and several smaller ones all over his chest, arms, and legs. It didn't have a sternum; the crisscrossing sinew kept the ribs in place. At the center end of the ribs, the bones were sculpted to look like snakes. The green fluid wasn't dripping off of it. Instead, the sinew and muscle seemed to be absorbing it and growing in size.
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A/N: Caveat Emptor (body horror), click the spoiler if you dare.
image [https://i.imgur.com/qb2iphq.png]
*
*
William charged and rammed the boss' knee, bouncing off. It roared and the fight was on.
The monster clawed at William and the same thing happened. William's HP fully deflected the claw attack. Kara approached from the other side while Sleepy charged lightning. The small size of his antlers still required a longer casting time. Since it was taller than my companions, I could shoot at its upper body without worrying about friendly fire. I avoided shooting at the spheres until I knew their purpose. They could be weak points or traps for all I knew. My arrows too bounced off the boss.
Kara ducked under a claw and slashed across the boss' hips. This first stage, like most boss fights, was all about grinding each other's HP pools. Unless one of the parties could cause debuffs or other effects that ignored HP, that was. But usually, everything that caused physical damage would be blocked by the HP pool. William parried the next swipe on his ram horn, killing the momentum. The boss shook from the impact and then roared. It brought its torso down and was zapped by Sleepy.
Lightning coursed over the boss's body, causing the silver orbs to light up. Energy seemed to be drawn into the orbs, especially the ones on the shoulders. After the shock passed, the orbs had this faint glow.
"Sleepy, don't shoot!" I shouted. The Wolfertinger yipped dejectedly.
We had to know what those silver orbs did. So, I focused my fire on them. First a small one on the arm on Kara's side. The arrow sapped a lot of HP from the boss but didn't deal significant damage as it flew off.
> For a clear shot, you gained 5 Experience Points.
Yeah, it was something. But instead of emboldening me, I feared for Kara's safety. What if the orb bursted and released something nasty, or even exploded? That the boss hadn't yet used any of them was also suspicious.
I drew and nocked a Holy arrow. "Kara, move over to William's side!"
"Right!" She blocked the next swing with her shield and then ran around the altar. She had an equivalent speed to the boss, which was good. William stared at the boss and used his evolution's eye features, His MP dipped but the boss became sluggish. So, instead of chasing after Kara, he focused both claws on William. The Tityron blocked one and then took the other on his wooly flank, mitigating the damage because of his special wool.
Once Kara was on the other side, I let loose. It struck right in the middle of the boss' left shoulder sphere.
> For a clear shot, you gained 6 Experience Points.
The sphere burst with a whiny static sound. A massive sphere of lightning shot out, small arcs of electricity jumping around all the hundreds of metallic objects in the room. The whining sound was deafening. We were all mostly okay. Sympathetic Resistance meant that William and I were highly resistant to Lightning because Sleepy shared it with us. And I had my amulet. Kara's metallic armor worked to shield her from the attack because it grounded the lightning, making it run around the armored parts of her body instead of through them. She also had double my own HP pool.
My next Holy arrow went through an eye socket. A bright flash of light showed us all the holes in the monster's head and also that it had nothing inside. I gained 2 Experience Points from this shot. I thought for a moment that I could farm a lot of Experience if I dragged the fight out but it was stupid to do that. What I needed was to kill this thing and then move on with my life. These meager Experience points weren't worth the risk of having one of us critically injured.
William's eyes lost their glow and the boss slammed both fists on him. Kara returned to her position to split the damage. I was beginning to suspect that the boss would change its pattern once its HP ran out, like a second phase. What I had to decide was whether I should pop all these orbs before the second phase or after it.