Beth led the group up the outer ramp of the nest and inside, descending the long inner ramp to the first room. As they approached the room, Beth saw that it was just as before, with two ants near the center. She used Identify just to be sure.

Common Ant Level 4

Common Ant Level 4

She looked over to the rest of the group and waited.

"Two level fours," Sabs spoke up, by now intuiting what Beth expected.

Beth nodded and gestured for them to get to it. The girls took longer to clear these two ants than they had anything else, but Soph's overwhelming damage once again saw them through. Beth gave them a minute to rest before they moved on, going through the next room, which already had three level fours. The battle was even more intense this time, with Blood lending a hand at the very end. The girls were clearly tired once the room had been dealt with, and Beth stopped them there.

"We have plenty of time today, everyone rest for a little, I'll clean any ants that come up while you recover. Do any of you know how to meditate?" she said to the group.

"I do," Soph responded, easing down onto the dirt floor with a slight grimace.

"Alright, go ahead and start." Beth commanded her. Turning to the rest of the group, she attempted to explain meditation. Her skill level wasn't high enough in Focused Meditation for her to have a chance of teaching it to the others. She got the sense she would need it in silver at the very least, and more likely actually in gold to have any chance of successfully instructing someone in the technique. Even so, under her direction, the other three, including Blood, closed their eyes and relaxed their breathing. Beth continued to talk them through looking inward in a calm voice, helping them relax and enter that deeper state of inner concentration.

Beth stood guard over the group as they meditated, walking over to the tunnel entrance heading toward room four a couple minutes later and pulverizing the head of a level three just as it walked out. She returned to the group, simply standing watch while taking a few sips from her water bottle. After a little under half an hour Soph was the first to stand up.

"Done already?" Beth asked, her eyebrows inching up.

"Yeah, I have something a little better than regular Meditation, and I've leveled it up a decent number of times already this week. I'm not back to full, but I'm already over 75% again," Soph explained a little airily, clearly taking pride in her skill.

"Nice. I have an improved version of mediation too, but it takes me a while longer to regen," Beth responded, Soph's eyebrows climbing in turn at the news Beth also had a more powerful meditation skill.

It wasn't too much longer before the other three opened their eyes and stood up. "Any luck?" Beth asked the group, ruffling Blood's ears as she shook herself out.

"Yep, Meditation Copper[0]." Kim answered.

"Yeah, Meditation Copper[1]." Said Sabs, giving Kim a slightly sheepish look. Kim just stepped over and patted the older girl's shoulder, not upset in the least by being slightly one-upped.

"Yip," Blood replied. Beth checked her stat page to see even Blood had managed to somehow get Meditation Copper[0]. Maybe it was because, even though she was low level, she already had the 'Queen' moniker in her racial description? Beth wasn't sure but she dismissed it for now, it being a point of pride, not concern, if anything.

"OK," Beth continued, clapping her hands, "let's move on. It will get a little tougher from here, but it shouldn't be too bad."

True to form, their next challenge was to take out a level five ant. Without having leveled, they were a little lacking in juice to take something like that down, proven as Soph's lightning bolt shocked the ant and lightly injured it but didn't do any serious damage. It took both Sabs and Kim acting in concert, backed by several blasts from Soph, to take down the ant. Beth admonished Soph slightly, much to her chagrin, for firing spells so wildly near her teammates, and they moved on to the next room, where two level five ants waited.

This was an even tougher fight, as Kim and Sabs basically had to go head-to-head with an opponent that was above their weight class, each taking on one of the ants while Soph more carefully dished out the lightning. It took more than five minutes for them to kill the two ants, and keeping up that level of focus in combat for so long was clearly taxing for the new adventurers. Beth had kept an eye on the tunnel and the group while they fought, making sure that no new ants joined the fight and that the girls didn't get overwhelmed. When both ants were dead, she smiled a little as she got ready to address the group.

"OK," Beth said, clapping her hands as she moved to the center of the room. "Well done. What could we have done better?"

The other girls thought for a few moments as Blood walked up to Beth, Beth stroking her ears and neck while the others pondered. Finally, Kim spoke up, "I think we did pretty well. Maybe we should have let them come to us?"

"I think that wouldn't have really made much of a difference. That would be letting them dictate the pace, but with their single file charges they wouldn't have really gotten an advantage from that. Anything else?" Beth responded.

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"Maybe have Sabs and Blood split to help cripple both?" Soph asked.

"That could also work, but the two teams you made did just fine. My only other observation from standing back and watching was you need to move better, Soph. You shifted left when the fighting started, which put Kim and the ant you were fighting between you and Sabs' group. If they needed a quick hand from you with some kind of spell, you would have had to sprint around the ant you were fighting. Everybody needs to try to keep their positioning in mind when fighting in a group," Beth answered.

Deciding not to give them another rest until after the next room, Beth led the group through the tunnel to the last room on floor two. This room was the same as the last, and Beth stood aside to let the others plan their attack. The group kept the teams the same and led off the same way. The fight went the same in nearly all points, this time with Soph staying toward the center of their formation, circling to Kim's right as she engaged the leftward ant.

After both ants had been felled there was general excitement and some fist pumping among the group. Even with the experience being split four ways, they were only level twos, apart from Sabs, who had spent more time with Beth at the start of the week hunting. Kim and Soph popped their points in, Soph following Beth's suggestion to pump STR and END for now, while Beth pulled up Blood's stats.

None of Blood's stats had gone up when she hit three, but she had 6 free points, confirming Beth's suspicion that Blood was gaining as many free points as the rest of them got points total per level. Beth dumped two points each into STR, DEX, and END for Blood, focusing on her physical stats as well. She took a glance at Blood's sheet afterward, indicating for the group to take a short meditation break while she stood guard.

Name

Blood

Race

Red Wolf Queen

Level

3

Strength

12

Dexterity

16

Endurance

12

Intelligence

10

Wisdom

10

Free Points

0

Titles

-

Skills

Meditation Copper[0]

Beth smiled, seeing just how strong Blood was becoming already. It was also somewhat thrilling that Blood could learn skills, meaning her potential was through the roof. Beth imagined what teaching even a simple skill like Crush to Blood could do for her damage output, thinking of her even larger jaws empowered while mashing what was in them. Even larger? Beth thought, walking over to Blood, who was sitting on her haunches with her eyes closed. It was a little tough to estimate, but Beth thought Blood might have gained three or even more inches in height from the level up.

Wonder how much she'll grow. Beth thought. Wouldn't be good if she gets to be the size of a house. Movement out of the corner of her eye interrupted her thoughts, and she walked over to the ramp leading down to floor three to quickly obliterate a level two ant.

After almost an hour, the rest of the group was up and ready, seeing a small pile of ant corpses Beth had made of the general spawns while they rested. She led the way down the long-sloped ramp to the final floor of the dungeon, stopping and stepping to the side as the group observed the first room.

They conferred for just a second, ready to take the ants out before Beth pointed out that the ants were no longer level five. That caused quite a bit of hesitation, but Beth assured them that they were capable of taking out such beasts, and that she would move in and back them up directly should they have trouble. The fight was even longer this time, with the regular steel weapons of the girls doing very little damage to the level sixes, but their skills were seemingly able to bridge the gap a little.

An ant from deeper in the dungeon tried to join the battle while they were in the thick of it, but Blood diverted at Beth's shout to take care of it. The wolf leapt across the room, moving far faster than Beth had seen her run before, intercepting the add and starting to tear it apart. With that distraction taken care of, the other three were able to finish the level sixes with quite a bit of effort but no interference from Beth. She hoped her just standing nearby and observing wasn't leeching experience, or too much experience, but she was more concerned about them being safe. Certainly, safer than she had been dealing with this new system so far.

The girls were somewhat out of breath, but quite happy with their performance, taking out three ants quickly. They regrouped in the center of the room when Sabs said, "Give me one moment, need to add my free points." She had apparently hit level four from the two kills. Beth decided to look at Blood's stats again, trying to see if there was some explanation for her sudden burst of speed.

Skills

Meditation Copper[1]

Swift Copper[0]

It seemed like Blood had learned or developed a new skill in the middle of battle. Beth guessed it was a movement skill, increasing Blood's movement speed when active. Happy with the yet greater strength of her companion, she closed the information boxes she had open and signaled for the group to follow, leading them deeper into the nest.

They stopped a minute later outside the second room of the third floor, the other girls looking at the two ants and nodding before talking strategy. They decided on the same plan, Soph mentioning she could repeat the performance, but she would have to rest for a while after they cleared this room, as the bolts she was throwing were gobbling up her still small mana pool.

The girls performed even better this time, with Sabs’s new level and no third ant wandering in, they cleared the room in under two minutes. Afterwards, they gathered in the center of the room as Beth stood watch, resting and restoring their mana. Beth watched the entrance to the second tunnel while stepping through what fighting forms she knew, interrupted a little under every twenty minutes with killing a new ant. It seemed they were spawning slightly faster than a few days ago, but nothing that one person couldn't easily handle still.

After over an hour-and-a-half, the group was ready to move on, Soph being mostly topped up again. Meditating would help greatly with mana regen and slightly with stamina, but it would be many, many skill levels before it could take the place of actual rest and even sleep. The group followed Beth through the next tunnel, soon arriving outside of the second-to-last room of the nest. Looking in, there were some muttered curses and frowns as the girls saw the three level sixes waiting for them.

"Think you can handle it?" Beth addressed the group.

"I think we might be able to do it. We should at least try," Kim replied, settling further into her role as the de facto leader as her confidence increased.

"What's your plan?" Beth continued, asking for them to work through what their setup would be.

"I think we do a similar pattern, but we'll deal with two of them charging. If Soph basically kills one and somewhat injures the other, we can de-leg one or more when two charge us. If we can get one or more legs off the first ant to reach us, we can move around it and fight ant two. Soph can finish off ant one then help with two. Once we have the first two dealt with, we clean up the third," Kim explained, looking to the rest of the active fighters for confirmation.

"I'll keep watch and step in if needed. You should remember that in the future, you're thinking of always having me on standby to watch your blind spots. If I wasn't here, you'd have to keep in mind the first ant you bombarded might recover quicker, so the four of you would have to pay better attention," Beth continued on from Kim's explanation.

"Got it. We'll keep our eyes peeled," Kim replied, the group nodding with her.

They started as they had for a number of rooms now, Soph leading with a double blast of blue bolts. The leftmost ant staggered and collapsed, its skull and neck lightly smoking. The remaining two ants charged the group, and Soph got one more good blast off before they were forced to engage, slowing one of the ants from the shock.

The ants were in their typical single file, charging the group one-by-one. Kim stepped forward and met the first ant with a Sweep, throwing off its momentum as she lightly cut its head. Sabs and Blood both took out a leg, Blood quicker about it than Sabs. While Sabs finished her first leg and slid over to the second, Blood activated her new speed skill and charged the second ant, which had taken one of Soph's bolts. The ant wasn't able to react to Blood's new level of speed in time and was bowled into, staggering back and rocking to the side.