"Alright," Beth said as she stretched after checking their statuses, "I think we're good now. Sorry about the long sleep, girl, I think using the gate so much put me under strain. I still feel a little…stretched thin."
Blood rumbled a little in response, headbutting Beth lightly before the armored girl grabbed the wolf by the neck and gave her some deep scratches, enjoying a little quiet moment together. A little calm before the storm, as they were about to dive into the deep end with this dungeon.
Blood eventually straightened up and shook herself, regaining her equilibrium before trotting off down the only tunnel they currently had available. Beth followed along behind, quickly approaching the first room as they prepared for battle. She reached up and grabbed the hilt of her blade over her right shoulder with her right hand, injecting just a touch of mana to unlock the clasps that held it. She pulled the blade around in front of her, holding it firmly without keeping it in a white-knuckle grip. She had the lightstone back on her belt, not afraid of getting into a tussle with the new levels boosting her.
They came up to the first room beyond the entry room, the light doing a much better job illuminating the interior this time. She was able to see three large kobolds within, none as big as the hulk, but definitely a good bit larger than the ones she had been fighting outside the dungeon. She was able to fire off a quick Identify on all three, returning all of them as:
Level 38 Enfrosted Kobold Miner
Luckily, it didn't appear that there was anything more dangerous than three high level miners in the room. It would also appear that Blood's concerns about the light had been well-founded, as after a handful of seconds of observing the room, the nearest kobold turned toward the light source and started shrieking in a warbling voice. This, of course, attracted the attention of the other two kobolds, who also joined their scratchy voices in to the shrieking, before the three beasts all charged the two girls.
Their leveling really paid off here, as they were able to meet the high-level kobolds two-versus-three and beat them. Beth did have a chuckle at thinking that level thirty-eight was high, considering even the weaker Enforcers were well into the hundreds, and that wasn't even their first time around. The two tore the three kobolds apart, though they were absolutely tougher than the beasts they had been fighting before. The jump in strength in fighting beasts high in the thirties in level showed, as it took quite a bit of effort to kill the three kobolds. They rested for a time after the battle, Beth just doing a bit of due diligence in restoring the little bit of mana she had used and making sure nothing else came running because of their battle.
"What do you say, girl? Try lefts?" Beth asked, referring to the fact this place was a labyrinth and one strategy for solving mazes was to pick a wall and stick to it. This could be foiled by a number of exigencies of the architecture, but it would be a good strategy for them to start with. Besides, with their even further enhance INT and WIS, both remembering their path and calculating the maze’s layout would be even easier.
Blood grumbled an affirming response and Beth lifted her sword point from the floor, keeping the blade to hand as they walked across the room and headed for the left-hand doorway. The opening led them into another tunnel, the rough greyish stone of the walls and ceiling shot through with little veins of black and brownish minerals. Beth was certainly no geologist and had no idea what the stone was supposed to be or if the minerals were in any way unusual, so she decided to actually make use of the camera of her phone and snap a few photos. She didn't know if it would matter, but with the fact Jaq had upped her storage capacity to a ridiculous level, there was no reason not to snap a few photos of anything interesting.
The rooms here seemed closer than the other places she'd been so far as, minus the time she spent snapping the photos, it was only about thirty seconds for them to reach the next room. She stopped just slightly further back from the opening to the next room, trying to buy herself an extra few seconds to analyze the contents before alerting any beasts. She could see four large shapes shambling about in the gloom, determining them all to be kobolds, though one was a bit larger. The miners had been just a little shorter than her six feet, well, six feet plus an inch with her heavy boots on, but the fourth specimen in this room looked to be close to a hand taller than her. She quickly made use of Identify, just barely able to hit three of the four beasts, including the taller one.
Level 38 Enfrosted Kobold Miner
Level 38 Enfrosted Kobold Miner
Level 39 Enfrosted Kobold Overseer
The large beast was apparently an overseer, which she could only guess was an upgrade from the miners. She signaled to Blood to get ready before stepping forward, getting to the doorway and taking a single step into the room before the beasts spotted her and set to a frightful shrieking. The whole group charged her, which was just fine with her, and Blood darted out around her, a dim red shadow in the oppressive twilight created by her lightstone. The huge wolf bypassed the first three enemies, getting to grips with the fourth and final enemy, another miner that had been further back in the room, starting to dart around it and savage its legs with her claws.
Blood's use of her claws to hamstring the kobolds was a key in their victory in this fight, as she was able to slow and wear down the miners. That let Beth free to face the overseer while also dishing out damage to the miners. The overseer was much tougher than the miners, and it was also able to blast out a bit of frost and ice at them, something the regular miners didn't seem capable of. That ability put Beth on the back foot a bit, making her more cautious, in turn making the fight longer as well as damaging her a bit in an unavoidable way. The long, gory fight was eventually brought to a close in a rather messy strike as Beth used her only sword skill, Monstrous Blow, to cleave the overseer in half.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She decided to take a moment to get them a little cleaned up as, even though this dungeon would be a long and dirty affair, she wanted to avoid walking around with blood and guts caked on her as much as possible. She moved to the center of the room they had just cleared, looking around to see the passage they had entered through and two more doorways spaced unevenly along the walls, but not much else. She unslung her pack and set it down, eternally thankful she had gone with the more expensive and much slimmer option, before shucking her gauntlets. No blood or guts had managed to penetrate them, leaving her hands and forearms relatively clean, allowing her to root around in the pack without introducing any filth.
The two took some time to rinse off, taking advantage of the endless canteens to get mostly clean as well as hydrated, before they had a ration bar each and a little more water. Beth repacked everything neatly before indicating for Blood to look around the room a little, curious if there was anything to find. Based on the theme so far, she expected at least a little crappy ore lying around, but after ten minutes of fruitless searching, decided to call it and move on.
They picked the leftmost of the two doors, sticking to their plan of hugging the left wall, and headed down the tunnel with Blood scouting ahead. The wolf moved to the point she was just a little ahead of the cone of light Beth was generating with the stone stuck to her belt, letting her highly proficient sense of smell and rather good hearing do most of the work. This tunnel proved to be rather short as, even walking at a moderate pace, Blood trotted back to Beth after just under twenty seconds to indicate there was something ahead.
The next room they peered into proved a mirror of the one they had just been in, at least in terms of the enemies within. Beth adjusted her gauntlets a little, making sure they were tight after having put them back on after finishing the ration bar, and made ready for a long fight. She started the encounter by moving into the room just as the kobolds noticed the light, allowing Blood to flow around and ahead of her, a deadly crimson shadow lancing forward through the dim chill.
This fight was very similar, down to Beth taking a solid strike to her left gauntlet to block a blow from a level thirty-nine wielding a blunt weapon, and she finished off the overseer last while it was still on its feet by chopping its torso into bloody chunks. She could definitely feel some bruising in her left forearm, but she wasn't at the point where she was concerned about the damage, and she examined her left gauntlet as she dismissed the bruising. The rod strikes had put two nice little dents in the heavy plating, but it wasn't enough to actually crimp the gauntlet to a point it was painful.
Beth dismissed the damage, at least for now, and moved to join Blood in investigating the room now that they had finished the fighting. They were set to be disappointed yet again, as they didn't find even a few crummy bits of ore, Beth still holding out hope but starting to feel some disappointment in the dungeon. Now that they were into the thirties in enemy levels, they were getting a few coppers per kill, which was nice, but the lack of any other kind of loot was a little annoying. She hoped that the dungeon clear reward would be nice, at least, perhaps quite a bit of silver coinage, if not a gold coin, to reward them for their troubles.
She looked around and found there were now a total of four doorways or entrances leading out of this room, including the one they had entered from. They continued on with their strategy, moving out the leftmost door counting from where they had entered, once again plodding down a roughhewn, generic tunnel. This one seemed to curve and bend a little, Beth feeling like they were still on a path moving further away from the entrance.
After nearly a minute they came upon the next room, this one a bit larger than the previous areas they had fought in, the light from Beth's stone not able to reach more than two-thirds of the way across the space when she stepped up to the doorway. The unknown did make her a little nervous, if only due to the fact that she seriously did not want to be overwhelmed by encountering a grouping of enemies larger than they first thought because they couldn’t see the entirety of the group. It looked like this wouldn't really be a problem here, as the light illuminated three enemies and a fourth one emerged from the gloom when the group responded to her presence by charging. She did a quick scan as usual to check what they were up against and noted the levels were increasing a little.
Level 39 Enfrosted Kobold Miner
Level 39 Enfrosted Kobold Miner
Level 40 Enfrosted Kobold Miner
Level 40 Enfrosted Kobold Overseer
The group had jumped a level or more, with two level thirty-nine miners and a level forty. Still not enough to really push them too hard, but it was definitely a tougher fight. The minor jump that enemies experienced every ten levels made the level forties just that much tougher, meaning Beth had to really lean more on her superior techniques to whittle them down versus just being able to brute force her way through. Blood also had to be more cautious, as even her dagger-like teeth found purchase tougher on the level forty beasts. They still couldn't keep up with Blood in terms of speed, but when Blood made to attack, especially with her jaws, she was much slower if not basically stopped, leaving her more vulnerable.
The fight lasted longer and saw Beth use more attrition tactics, which only really worked as the kobolds didn't have any kind of healing or even regeneration, meaning enough cuts and wounds would pile up to eventual crippling if not outright fatal collapse. Still, they got it done in the end, killing all four kobolds in just under ten minutes of intense, technical combat. Beth was a little annoyed, not wanting this to take too long, but she had to admit the experience would be rather good, fighting at or up-level for what was likely to be quite a few battles.
This room only had two other tunnels leading out from it and, after scouting around and finding nothing in the room itself, they moved out the leftward of the two tunnels. They ventured down this tunnel for a minute or so until they encountered a large, circular room that Beth's lightstone was just able to illuminate. The room didn't look like it had any other doorways or tunnels connected to it, and there was only a single enemy in the center, far enough away from the light that it didn't attack immediately. Beth took the opportunity to use Identify before backing up slightly, not wanting to start a fight before doing a proper assessment.
Level 42 Winter Kobold Ravager
Backing up slightly further, Beth signaled to Blood to circle up for a quick consult. "What do you think, girl? In the forties, special variant, special type; too much for us?"
Blood tilted her head to the side, golden green eyes narrowing as she considered, one ear flicking a little. The huge wolf tilted her head the other way, eyes still narrowed, giving the matter quite some thought. Eventually, she looked directly at Beth, staring into her eyes as she nodded once while sending a strong warmth back through their bond, the faint echo of a 'yes' coming along with it.
"Harass and disable, I'll go toe-to-toe with it. I don't think we can run from it, based on our experience so far, so we have to finish it once we start," Beth elucidated. "Don't do anything risky, however; we can take it slow and steady and take a big bastard like this down at our pace."