“All done?” Koma asked as she looked back at the preparing Spellthief.
“All good”, Logan replied as he stood up, having prepared his spells for the day.
“Your summons will stay with Marcus, correct?”
“Yeah, they are permanent summons, except for Spark. So a few of my second-level slots are dedicated to them until they die”, Logan explained.
“Good, he needs their help more than us”, Koma responded as she drew her bow, “we’ll continue down the corridor we explored yesterday. Once we hit a chamber with three or fewer corridors we’ll make a new fallback camp.”
“How long will this shift stay like this?” Logan asked as he pointed at the floor.
“Typically they stay like that until we find something to revert it, or everyone leaves the dungeon.”
“Alright. Force”, Logan replied as he began to make cracks in the floor with his mick.
Over and over, Logan blasted apart a large arrow that pointed down the corridor they were going down, next he created an archaic message in the craters he was making.
“Cass, here.”
Koma looked over the message and nodded, “That should suffice, let’s go.”
“Right behind you.”
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Retracing their steps through the previous hallway of frost snakes, the pair kicked away at the invisible corpses. Logan was tempted to start carving them up for components, just as the wolves, however, the duo weren’t in the best place to just spend so long sitting around as their team was also in dangerous situations.
Logan had Harvested the goblins in their spot, as well as moved their corpses to the side of the larger chamber before going to sleep, but that was in their downtime. He’d have to come back later for the rest or have another team member do it. Regardless, in the end, he was leaving, so did it matter?
“So, what you guys said earlier. My team would have survived if not for the yetis at the entrance, would this shift not have also spelt our doom?” Logan asked as he clicked his fingers.
“I doubt you would have split up as we did. Let me guess, you would have corralled those goblins into the corridor to blast down at them?” Koma replied without turning.
“That would be my plan, yeah.”
“We’re more aimed at quick clearance. Splitting up like that allowed us to take them down quicker. Shifts are unpredictable, so who’s to say if it would have occurred the same for your team? You had other casters, right? That would have meant their spells, backed up with yours, would have done well enough to cover a hallway with walls of fire.”
“So we were better suited to groups?”
“Yeah, and if you stuck together as a full team you’d be better geared to these ambushes. A group of 10s should have been able to clear this in my mind. The wargs would have caused a day of rest at most, to restock spells.”
“I had to rely on my rings for that, but we did have a Sorcerer in my last team.”
“The yetis are all the danger in this place, to my mind. All of us together took down that single one rather quick, but split up as we are it’s hard to look at our overall power.”
“With this explanation, the splitting up is still a bit strange in my mind”, Logan added.
“As I said before, all avenues have their pros and cons. Our higher power allows for splitting a lot easier than 10s. And-” Koma continued but was cut off by Logan.
“Wait, enemies.”
“What are we looking at?” Koma asked quietly as she ducked down, nocking an arrow.
“A smaller chamber, four enemies at the walls.”
“Can you tell their facing or stances?”
“No. They are just in the corners.”
“Alright, I wager they know we’re coming. I’ll draw fire and pass by. Is there a corridor in front of us?”
“Yes, and one to the right.”
“Good, straight run. They probably have attacks aimed at our hallway. Get in after I pass and start blasting with Force, I’ll circle back and start firing my bow.”
“What about traps?”
“Haven’t seen any so far. I’ll adjust if necessary.”
“Fair enough, I’m ready”, Logan replied as he moved his staff under his arm to allow him to run better.
Koma’s body started to produce afterimages yet again as she Dashed down the corridor. Before reaching the chamber she slid into a jump, turning vertical and sideways she threw a dagger into the floor.
The floor shone a bright blue as she passed, icicles darted upwards into the ceiling, crashing into shards all around. She adjusted well to the trap as she well cleared it, and set it off to not have it hit Logan.
Flying across the air, Koma landed with another slide before continuing on into the next corridor. Logan began his own sprint after her.
A hailing barrage of ice came from all corners of the room as the interior goblins shot off Frost spells to hit the Rogue, but she was already out of there before they could touch her.
Logan leapt over gaps in the large icicles that aimed to pierce and crush his party. Aiming at the goblins he let out Force micks into the foes, hitting them against the walls they hid at. Koma returned, firing arrows at the goblinoids she had eyed up before leaving.
Each foe took a single arrow, or two Force micks to bring down, ending the fight rather quickly in comparison to previous encounters.
Chapter 93 - blue goblins 4 XP [https://i.postimg.cc/nZDG5bQS/Chapter-93-blue-goblins-4-XP.png]
“Easy enough”, Koma spoke as she looked over herself, “fuck sake”, she cursed as she saw an ice spike in her calf. Pulling it out, she tossed it to the side where it slowly melted away.
Logan looked at his ally’s status, she had only taken 9 damage from the spell. “Good eye on that trap”, he said with a grin.
“Quite the diviner. It was easy enough to spot I suppose. If that had hit me, and those goblins got me with their spells, we’d be in a much worse place.”
“Talking about our place, this is a three-exit chamber. Good for you?”
Koma looked around for a few seconds, investigating the possible defence position. “Bit cramped, but most likely safer. Let me set up some alarms on the corridor we came from then we can explore down this one.”
Logan nodded as he began to Harvest the goblins, Koma moving past him to set up the traps. The icicles behind them didn’t stick around for long, cracking apart and falling to the floor in a small mound of ground ice.
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“All done”, Koma announced.
“Same here”, Logan replied as he finished using Clean on the area.
Logan was disappointed somewhat that he couldn’t steal the MP of the goblins, but with how easily they died he couldn’t really get into a good position to do it.
Leading the duo again, Koma and Logan headed down the hallway that the Rogue had run into previously. Their time spent Harvesting and setting up traps allowed Koma to recharge some of her skills.
It didn’t take long for the pair to reach another small chamber, splitting off into four directions including the one they had come from. As well as the corridors, there was a small hole in the floor with large lines cut out of the wall, creating a makeshift ladder if not for the ice burn you’d get for holding the wall so tightly.
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“A way to go down, doesn’t look like it goes down enough to meet with Cassius though”, Koma calculated.
“Plenty of options either way. What do you want to do?” Logan asked.
“There is either a path to get back together, or we make one. But, is there a mechanism in the dungeon to move the ice?” Koma thought aloud.
“Koma?”
“Logan, are these other corridors long at all?”
“Two are dead-ends, the other goes on much further.”
“Let’s check the dead-ends, and then the longer corridor. Make sure we won’t be getting ambushed.”
“I can’t scan any monsters down them, but they could be invisible”, Logan proposed.
“Let’s go.”
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Koma led the pair to the end of the two corridors, the first had nothing of note, but the second did have another trap that Koma set off from afar with an arrow. Another Frost Wall that would have been quite painful to experience.
The Rogue had an inquisitive look on her face as the duo explored, probably expecting something to happen as they investigated.
“This whole place probably changes with each decade”, Koma theorised aloud.
“There was mention of that with the poorly done map.”
“That would mean that many of these corridors may contain contents of places they shouldn’t. Where are the ‘rooms’ for the monsters to sleep in? Where are their treasure hoards? Not to mention the lack of any royal designs or luxuries that a king would normally have.”
“Trying to figure out where the final room might be?”
“Yeah, all of this just looks like plain ice. Is it meant to be a maze?”
“The last dungeon I was in was very mazelike”, Logan reminisced.
“I guess my experience betrays me.”
Returning to the small chamber, the pair continued on down the longer hallway.
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A strong smell of decay started to fill the pair’s nostrils as they continued, enough to paint the picture of a pit of corpses in their minds. Blood, rotting flesh, it wasn’t pleasant in the slightest. Logan and Koma both pulled out scarves to wrap around their mouths and noses.
Reaching the final chamber of this path revealed it to be just that. Large shifting holes in the wall slowly dropped more contents into a large pit of weapons, armour, scraps, and meat. None of the corpses were recognisable past the countless bite marks or chunks that were missing.
“Disgusting. At least we found one hoard”, Koma spoke as she held onto her scarf.
“I was expecting something more… clean?”
“You’d generally find that. Spellforced dungeons typically break down bodies into spellforce to repopulate or power themselves.”
As Koma was explaining things, parts of blue goblins started to fall into the pile.
“Above, this is a cannibalistic dungeon”, Koma spoke.
“Don’t they normally break apart monsters?”
“They normally leave the monsters for last, to do it so early shows that it is preparing for something. I guess it’s all for reviving the Ice King”, Koma theorised.
“So anything that dies here hastens his revival?” Logan asked worriedly.
“Maybe? It is possible it just does this to revive him, if so, we should tell the MT to blow this place to the below.”
“What? That is possible?”
“Yeah, given time. We typically don’t explode dungeons since it leaks their power outside of their confines. But if they are breaking down any corpse nearby like this, it is possible they could stop the Ice King from ever coming back.”
“So, increase the danger in the local area, but reduce the final build-up?”
“Essentially. Has no one seen this before us?”
“Would they have destroyed this place if they had?”
“To my mind… yeah. Maybe this is normally hidden away. The royals should pick the place clean if they didn’t use the adventurers to kill the Ice King.”
“You said the dungeon would persist, but just outside of the confines. If it controlled a larger area would it not mean the Ice King revived quicker?”
“You might be right. Better to ask the magi though. I guess they can’t scan this room from the outside like their last assessment.”
“Do you know much of how dungeons normally work?” Logan asked.
“Just from an adventurer's point of view. Shit, I don’t want to think about this anymore, we’ll just go in circles. Let’s dig out packs and satchels then move on.”
As Koma said it, she began to dig through the mess and threw any container she could find into the corridor.
Logan couldn’t help but think about the origins and inner workings of dungeons though. They sounded like their own organism, at least the spellforced ones did. They were all “cannibals” as they turned spellforce into monsters, but in this way, it was more apparent and enforced. Were they all working to please Madamra?
The clinking of gear hitting the icy floors pulled Logan out of his daze, his hands working on auto-pilot as he also dove through the piles.
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A dozen minutes passed before the two pulled themselves out of the small pit of supplies, their gloves and lower halves coated in blood and guts. Logan began using his mick to rid them of such vile while Koma picked out vials from the packs.
From it all, Logan gained seven first-level potions and four second-level potions to recover his spell slots. The healing potions went to Koma. There were also some buff potions that Koma kept for herself as they would aid her more than a caster. Sadly, no trinkets would grant them any power beyond what they already had, so they went into a communal loot bag.
“It seems that they took corpses from outside the dungeon, some of these bodies don’t match up with the parties that came here”, Logan announced.
“Monsters taking orders, oh boy. We should be happy they didn’t reform a second yeti at the entrance, though I suppose we could have taken them easy enough.”
“I thought monsters formed from spellforce in the air?”
“They do, but all our gear has spellforce in them. If this is an intelligent design, then gathering up corpses and items like this would hasten new monster creation, or it could just be all for reviving the Ice King”, Koma replied, “we’re going in circles again. Let’s just get out of here.”
Logan couldn’t bounce his ideas around any further it seemed. Instead, they would run around in his head. He couldn’t get rid of that questioning mind.
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Returning to the ladder chamber, the pair looked around quickly before Koma peered into the hole.
“We’re going down. I’d rather form up if the dungeon is gathering spellforce like it is. Follow after me”, Koma spoke as she turned around and placed her feet on either side of the hole to get a better look before jumping down.
Logan did the same, Koma moving to the side to allow space for the Spellthief.
The chamber was of a similar design to the one above, but only had two corridors leading away. One was sloped downwards while the other had no such decline. With Echo Radar Logan couldn’t see either end or any monsters.
Picking a corridor, the pair continued their travels onwards, the interior of the cavern continuing to light their way with glistening walls of blue hues.
“How’re the others”, Koma asked without turning around.
“Active, and all alive”, Logan replied, not wanting to talk too much about his party menu. He did notice that Marcus had been using quite a bit of MP.
“Handy ability to have.”
Before continuing any form of dialogue, if it was going to continue, Koma held up her arm to stop Logan.
“Can you detect another hallway near here?” she asked.
Logan clicked his fingers but gave no result, “No. Why?”
Koma looked to the side, caressing the wall with her hand. She then turned away from the wall and went to the opposite one. “Blast that wall with a Flame spell.”
“Alright”, Logan replied as he got into a stance, “Flame Shot”, he chanted, a tuft of fire sparking in his hand and exploding into the wall.
The icy barrier cracked all over as it came crashing down, revealing a hidden corridor behind it. Logan’s mini-map updating as he looked into a new hallway.
“Thought so, our footsteps sounded slightly different.”
“You picked that up?”
“I’ve been looking for false walls since the shift. This is probably our ticket back to the team.”
“Leaving the countless corridors to reform then”, Logan confirmed.
“With four of us, we won’t have to worry about anything. It’s best we form back up with Marcus too.”
“Hopefully he hasn’t gotten into too much trouble.”
“He may find the bulk of the foes on the lowest floor. Low rank, high numbers.”
“Quantity over quality then, ay?” Logan said as he checked his party menu, Marcus having increased his MP via using a vial.
“I think the weaker foes are quicker to form than stronger, hence there being only two yetis.”
“And one Ice King.”
“Above save us if there was more than one of those.”
“Speaking of the above, what are the below PCs doing? Will I find an opponent at the end of this quest? Aren’t they meant to oppose my progress?” Logan thought to himself.
“How does it look ahead?” Koma asked as she turned to Logan.
“Short corridor, has another ladder at the end and goes down”, Logan replied as he checked his mini-map.
“Good, should be within earshot at that point, hopefully. We’d be damned if they went the other way.”
“What about any other shifts?”
“We can’t anticipate them all. But we’ve been split up once. I doubt we’d be split again. Normally each shift is different”, Koma responded as she began to walk down the hallway.
“Any you think we would get hit with here?”
“Well, we’ve had a split. This maze design already speaks of changing corridors. Outside of that, possibly alert systems? Destroying this wall wouldn’t be one since it should be connected to the split. Entering the hoard could have been an alert, but seemingly it wasn’t.”
“A hoard summoning a horde, lovely idea that”, Logan replied as he wiped his forehead.
Peering into the next ladder hole had Koma stop for a second, “This one isn’t leading to the middle, it’s far too deep. It probably links up with the bottom.”
“That’s better, right? We can meet back with Marcus.”
“Too true, Cassius can handle himself”, Koma responded as she began to climb down the ladder.
The pair descended one after another, going down a good sixty feet. However, instead of the blue colours greeting their eyes at the bottom, they were treated to a crimson display across the halls. The ice was almost shimmering, vibrating.
“Shit, a horde!” Koma yelled as she darted down the only corridor.
“Marcus!” Logan yelled as he ran to follow, realising that was why his friend’s MP was fluctuating.
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Character Sheet - Logan Hall - Level 15 - Chap 93 - End [https://i.postimg.cc/z8bz17kf/Character-Sheet-Logan-Hall-Level-15-Chap-93-End.png]