In the darkness of the Cavern there stood numerous humanoid figures which were illuminated by a dull blue glow coming from the ground beneath them. Based on the poem that Fatal remembered, there should only be a need to stand on 6 of the 9 runes available. After some trial and error, Fatal and Pixie were able to determine the most likely translation and directed everyone to stand on the different runes.
Unfortunately, even after about 10 minutes of this they were still unable to get the door to open. Gii had remained quiet during this entire thing, but finally felt like now was the perfect opportunity to speak up.
"I think we should step on the runes in the order they would appear in the translation. also these two seem to be really similar, maybe they could be reversed?"
Pixie looked at the runes and nodded.
"I think you're right, they could probably be reversed. Let's give it a try."
Pixie directed the others and they stepped on the runes in the order he showed them. One by one the runes lit up with a blue color and illuminated the area until eventually the last person stepped on the 6th rune. Suddenly the lights flashed into a white color and there was a large rumble as the door on the opposite end of the room started to slide open.
"We did it!"
The group collectively celebrated and thanked Fatal and Pixie for joining them. Without their help it was very likely they would have been stuck at this puzzle for a long time and would have had to resort to scouring the forums for and waiting for someone to translate everything. Dan quickly took up his role as leader again and directed Rebel to move out and scout the new path they had unlocked. Everyone else followed after and began to ready themselves for any possible scenario.
It didn't take long for the group to come across a room that had enemies in it. Unlike the rooms and area's they had encountered up until this point, the golems were already activated and walking around here. They noticed a number of regular golems and lesser golems that were walking around the large room. What caught everyone's attention was the 2 massive golems in the back of the room that looked to have some arcane carvings engraved onto their bodies.
[Greater Golem: Level 35]
The group backed away from the new found location and gathered together and made a plan of attack. Dan spoke up first.
"Although the numbers are a bit of a concern, I think we should be able to handle the lesser golems without issue. The trouble will probably come from those greater golems since we don't know if they will have any other special abilities."
"The regular golems are level 30 here but that should only give them a little more health or resistance."
Dan nodded at Sun and turned to look at Gii
"Gii, since you have the most health I'll have to ask you to tank them for a bit. Pixie and Queen will join you in trying to hold them off."
The three of them nodded in unison as they had adopted this strategy before and it had been quite effective.
"Fatal, since you can 1 shot the regular golems I want you to focus them down with Term. Me and Rebel will bring down the lesser golems and Sun will support the four of us."
"That's a tall order for me but I'll do my best."
Despite Sun's complaint, he looked ready to go. As they had a plan of action now they quickly readied themselves and rushed out into the large room that contained the golems. The first 2 to rush out were actually Term and Fatal as they targeted one of the regular golems each. Fatal unleashed an exaggerated slash and was able to decimate the golem and slice it in 2 while Term followed right behind and unleashed a couple of slashes on another one. His luck was great as he was able to score a critical hit and the golem also dissipated.
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Invigorated by the best start possible, Rebel and Dan ran over to a group of lesser golems and began drawing aggro from them. The last of the bunch, Gii and the 2 others, began to make their way through the battlefield where the path had been cleared for them. One of the greater golems had already targeted them and put it's hand above it's head as they were approaching. Gii immediately knew what ability the golem was using and tried to jump out of the way while warning his teammates.
"Try not to get hit!"
As the golem raised it's hand above it's head, the magical engravings on its body lit up and an area that would have engulfed the 3 of them lit up with a magical circle. It flashed and suddenly the ground lurched up in a large wave of mud and rock as it slammed into Queen. Even though she avoided a direct hit, the rock and mud quickly dried and hardened around her armor and it began slowing her down even further. She tried to shake it off but ended up falling behind both Gii and Pixie as they got into melee range of the golem.
Pixie as a healer always had a great sense of distance and knew the general range for the golem ranged attacks at this point. Combined with his small form and generally higher dexterity, he was able to easily dodge out of the way of the attack. Unfortunately Queen was unable to escape because of the restriction on her speed with the plate armor and a fairly sizeable damage number that flashed above her head.
[-150]
Gii had activated his punishments before getting into the melee range and it was just in time as after the golem unleashed the ranged attack it readied itself and then swung it's fist right down towards Gii.
[-459]
There was a large force on Gii's arms as he naturally tried to block his vitals and he was pushed back a good 10-15 ft. Gii was happy at the almost 100 strength he had gained but looked over to check on Queen, who had tried to engage the other golem. What he saw was that Queen had been unable to dodge the other golem's ranged attack due to the mobility restriction she had been hit with. As a result she was having to rely on her armor to tank the damage from melee attacks and was unable to dodge effectively. The greater golem's damage output was much higher than the regular ones and Pixie had already thrown a heal at Queen to keep her from falling below half health.
Gii tanked another hit from the golem he was facing and then slashed out with an attack to gauge his damage.
[-378]
[-623]
Sure enough, these guys have around 50% resistance
Gii had remembered that these greater golems would be a bit of a pain to deal with through the remainder of the dungeon and his slash had confirmed his memory. On the other side Queen had been able to apply some of her debuffs to the golem but their good luck up until this point seemed to have run out as the golem slammed it's fist down onto Queen and erupted with a critical hit!
Critical hit!
[-850]
Even with the bit of damage reduction that she had, with the damage she had taken earlier, this still nearly outright killed her! She only had slightly under 100hp remaining after that. Pixie had been paying attention to the situation and knew things would get bad if Queen was to go down, so he grit his teeth and rushed in to the fray in order to assist. Up until this point he had always remained at the back in the fights so he could make sure he was keeping track of all of the events that were taking place and heal who needed it most. Unfortunately his most powerful healing spell required him to touch the other person, so while he was hoping it wouldn't come to this, he still made a dash to Queen out of necessity.
Although The others were paying attention to their own fights, they couldn't help but notice the dire situation that was unfolding with the other group. Many of them wanted to jump over to help them but there were simply too many golems they had to fight right now and Sun was occupied keeping the 4 of them in fighting condition. Pixie knew there would be concern so he reassured everyone with a shout.
"Don't worry I got this!"
As he rushed over, there were still a couple of regular golems that had not been aggroed by the rest of the group and they immediately took swipes at Pixie as he went by. He dodged the first attack, but was struck head on by the second.
[-125]
Unlike Sun who was able to wear heavy plate armor, Pixie only wore a set of magical robes. In addition, the trade off his pixie race gave him for extra healing ability was miniscule health. Although the damage was not alot, he currently only had around 600 hp so this amount was actually a large portion of his health. Despite the damage taken, Pxiei was able to make his way past the 2 golems and into range to tap Queen on the shoulder. He muttered an arcane incantation and the magical energy flowed out from his hand and into Queen as a patch of grass and wild growth appeared at her feet and in their surroundings.
[+843]
As Queen was healed, she was finally able to brush off the rest of the hardened mud and clay that had been affecting her movement and moved out to attack the Golem. Unfortunately, the golem had redirected its aggro towards the healer after he had used such a powerful spell. Queen had tried to maneuver between the two of them but was unable to position herself in time and the golem swung out with it's massive arm.
Truthfully, this is the main reason why Pixie had remained at the back of the groups and avoided using his big spells. Usually, whoever was dealing the most damage would always be the one to attract the aggro of the monsters. The only exception to that would be healing spells as monsters would always prioritize attacking the healer if they had a choice. Since most of the time Pixie could sit back and use his weakest healing spells, he would never be able to attract the attention of the monsters. However, he knew that once he used his stronger healing spells he would be targeted, unless there was someone like Fatal around him who could deal an absurd amount of damage.
Pixie knew that based on the damage these greater golems were dealing, there was a fairly large chance he would be outright killed if he took the attack head on. Fortunately he had been prepared for this to happen and at the last second, was able to dodge out of the way. A large cloud of dust was kicked up as the fist slammed into the ground. While he was inwardly celebrating his close shave, he heard Queens voice from his side.
"Look out!"
There was suddenly a large force as the smash of a fist slammed into his back.
Critical hit!
[-250]
The other golems he had run into on the way over had followed him and when he had dodged out of the way from the greater golem, he had moved right into their attack range. Cursing at himself for the oversight, he dodged another fist as the second one had reached his location as well. Queen was forced to attract the aggro of the greater golem by herself and could only watch on helplessly as Pixie was desperately dodging the attacks of the 2 golems. It didn't take long for Pixie to start getting overwhelmed and he watched in dismay as a large fist was rocketing straight for his face.