The others looked at me in confusion at my statement so I explained further. "There are sewers under the city right? The sewers attract monsters of various kinds, and eventually gather mana from the people living above ground. This lets them form into dungeons naturally. The guild sends people to clear the sewers periodically as a punishment of sorts to bad adventurers so you probably haven't heard of the dungeon if you've been following the rules." The others looked at me with a look of realization except for Ronia, who looked at me skeptically and said "So what? It probably doesn't pay well or there would be dozens of adventurers braving the stinking tunnels of crud. You suggesting we go down there for some sort of loot? I better hear something convincing or you can go by yourself, and I highly doubt you have anything convincing to say.
~~~
"I can't believe I let you convince me to come down here..." grumbled Ronia as she trudged through along through the dark and dreary tunnels that smelled like hell. We walked on and I said "Don't worry, like I said before, we can collect as much as we want thanks to good ol me and my storage. The only real problem was the smell and I solved that as well thanks to these bad boys." I shook a bottle of liquid, which was a potion to dull your sense of smell. I had gone to the store that sold potions and bought 8 of the potions, and gave 2 to everyone. The potions lasted for 4 hours each so we had a total of 8 hours down here before the foul smell assaulted us. I had also bought 10 healing potions and 10 mana potions. The last time I needed to use them made me reconsider using consumables. I used to not use consumables in game since they didn't do jack didly for me but now they would actually help. The cost of all of the potions still hurt though. I had spent a total of 1 silver and 80 copper on the potions alone. Herald had gotten his equipment repaired before coming down here and the others had done similar maintenance and restocking.
We were continuing our march down the halls, with me trying to convince Ronia to not up and leave, since she really hated being down in the sewers. "Graaaargh!!" Off down a passage way in front and to our left a loud roar was heard, followed by several thumping footsteps sprinting our way. Herald raised his shield and Ronia nocked an arrow while me and Ray prepped our weapons. A hideous creature on 4 legs came barreling out of the hallway and slammed into the wall as it turned the corner. I heard herald groan "Great, a Horbrot. Those things are a pain to deal with, not to mention they look freaking disgusting." Everyone agreed with that statement as Ronia fired an arrow at the thing. It hit it's leg but it continued charging us.
Horbrots were disgusting creatures that lived off of rotting meat and whatever else they could scavenge or kill for food in the sewers. They looked like mutated furless wolves that were crossed with rats. They had purple skin with small tufts of red hair dotting their bodies and their spine is protruding on their backs, only covered by a thin film of pinkish skin tightly stretched over it. The creature roared and sliced its claws at Herald, who blocked with his shield. He reciprocated with a swing from his sword and cut the side of the Horbrot, spilling purple blood. The creature roared in pain as it charged forward and bit down heavily on the edge of Herald's shield and tried wrenching it away. It promptly got an arrow in the eyeball which embedded deep in the skull, and retreated several steps but didn't die. It spilled more purple blood as it turned around and hobbled back down the way it came, occasionally looking back at us. The group was going to give chase but I spoke up.
"Don't bother, it's trying to lure us into an ambush set up the way it came. Those things also have a lot of vitality and regeneration. I'm sure you saw it didn't die from an arrow to the eye so I don't need to prove that point. Besides, I really don't want to deal with a Horbrot Belcher, or worse a Horbrot Splitter. Those things are a pain in the ass to fight." The others looked at me quizzically but simply decided to trust me on this one since I seemed like I knew the most out of them. Ronia just flat out asked "How do you know so much about the sewer dungeon? It's as if you've been down here before. It's just weird." I waved her off and just said something about having a decent bit of knowhow and knowledge from books. What I was doing at the moment was trying to remember the map of this place from the last time I explored it.
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The last time I had been here was when I was under level 200 so it was quite a long time ago. I wasn't bothering with this place for the sole reason of money. No, what I wanted was the items hidden deep within this dungeon. I especially can't wait to get my hands on that mask and have some fun. I then remembered something and said "Remember, we are also looking for alchemical ingredients so keep a lookout for any you know, especially a purple mushroom with red stripes on its stem, those things can be hard to come by so keep your peepers peeled." The others nodded as we continued to travel down the hall.
We had been attacked by 3 other Horbrots and managed to kill 1 while the other 2 escaped and tried to lure us somewhere. They kept hounding us, attacking us occasionally and being a general nuisance to us. We were rather tired of it and I sent a few Ice shards at them, nailing one in the leg and scaring them off again. We had made it to a large room with machines designed to maintain the sewer tunnels and keep them clean. There was only 1 thing wrong with them. They had been turned into a home by Horbrots and I saw a single Horbrot Belcher among the group.
"We really should turn the other way, thats more than we can handle at one ti-" Herald was stopped mid-sentence as the Horbrots noticed us and roared. It was a cacophony of roars and garbled howls. "Shit! This ain't great. Guess we got no choice anymore. Not with those 2 keeping guard behind us and the entire group charging us from the front." Herald said before roaring back at the charging Horbrots, using his skill War Howl. The group stopped running at us and froze in place, some of the things tumbling on the ground from the momentum they had built up. With the group stunned we unleashed everything we had. Ronia loosed a rain of arrows on them while Herald and Ray sliced and diced.
I focused on the belcher at the back, since he was a bigger threat. Unfortunately, I didn't get to launch more than 7 ice shards before Herald roared "Careful, the skill's about to wear off! Be ready for movement!" Not a moment later the creatures started stumbling forward and shook their heads. The Horbrots quickly turned to us and ran forwards. We had managed to whittle their numbers down considerably as now there was only 3 Horbrots and the Belcher leftover from that massive group. I gathered mana for Chilling Shardblast while holding my sword firmly. The first 2 rammed into Heralds shield, shoving him backwards several centimetres. He roared as he shoved his shield forwards. He was unable to use his sword for much more than a distraction since the things pressured him so much.
Ray stabbed his spear at the things attacking Herald, in an attempt to get an easy kill, but the third Horbrot decided that now was a good moment to charge Ray. It looked like a porcupine at this point with the amount of arrows lodged into it and had both of its eyes shot out but continued charging forwards with no care in the world. We then heard a loud gurgling followed by a loud belching sound. The
Horbrot Belcher had vomited it's acid at us, sending a ball of the stuff flying at us.
Horbrot Belchers looked mostly the same as the regular versions except for having fatter stomaches and 2 gray horns protruding from their heads, curving backwards. The ball landed squarely on Herald's chest, covering him the sickly green liquid. Immediately after we heard an audible sizzling followed by Herald roaring in pain. "Healing Light!" Ronia cast what healing magic she knew on Herald, lessening his pain some. I meanwhile had redirected the mana I was building up for my spell into making a very large water ball, and sent it flying at Herald. "Hold your breath Herald!!" I screamed before it hit him.
The water washed over him, washing away the green fluid away as well. It also sent Herald tumbling backwards while the Horbrots were slammed into each other and tumbled away. Ray was busy fighting the 3rd one and wasn't faring too well due to their stupid amount of vitality. The thing had several stab wounds in the gut and a shallow slice on its neck, which was healing over quickly. This was turning out to be more trouble than I remembered it being when I came here. "Looks like we are going to have one hell of a time down here aren't we?" I said to Ray who grunted as he slammed his spear into the things neck and twisted before slicing downwards. The thing splurted blood everywhere and collapsed on the ground finally dead. Ray looked at me and said, "You owe me a drink after this."