My eyes open to see another stone chamber, albeit one that has a more natural feel, maybe from the way its walls and ceilings are rough and uneven. The room is effectively four by four meters in size excluding all the nooks and crannies. Two exit corridors can be seen straight ahead, only two meters apart.
"You got a plan?" Henry asks from somewhere beside me. The five appeared in a formation smack dab in the middle of the room, two on the front, three behind. Though who goes where must have been random as Roy, the obvious tank, is one of the three standing in the back row. On the other hand, I find myself standing roughly half-a-meter away at their 2 o-clock.
"Well, how about I keep watch for now while you guys check your System notifications." I suggested two disks fly out their slot on my back armor-swarm. "Please do tell me if we're in a safe zone."
"Yes!" Agus replied with fervor. "We are in a safe zone sir!"
Ain't he totally being weird? "Uhh, it's fine to talk normally?" He nods, but I catch him giving my mouth a few glances before my eyes find Henry. "Hmm, In the last dungeon I went into. I scouted out the place from a safe zone like this one using some of my disk. So, got anything good from the notifs?"
"Let's see~. Three Titles; Dungeoneer Pioneer Smuggleer, Mortal Doonlegged and Title Progenitor." He said absent mindedly.
"Nice! I got the smuggleer and progenitor one too, what does Mortal Doonlegged do?" These Titles are named funny sometimes, is that a play on bootleg?
"Something about dungeon rewards being rolled thrice and me getting to choose one whole set or two individual items from the whole list, as boosted by progenitor." He explained.
The other three confirmed to have got the same three titles. So there are four progenitors, how does that work? Though I suppose that's not something for me to worry about. "Alrighty, so any of you got Magico Disk to Advanced mastery?"
None do. So I send a disk each down the two available corridors while somehow answering Henry's questions regarding Magico Disk's Intermediate mastery. The left corridor slopes slightly downwards, while the opposite is true for the right one. Though they end up exiting onto the same caverns, one on what I would consider to be ground level, while the other one comes out on a balcony of sorts that overlooks the ground area.
The cavern's grounds vary between what I assume to be ten meters wide to maybe double that in others in a flowing design, it also seems to go on deeper for as far as I can see. While the balcony is consistent at about 5 meters wide. Spread everywhere are what I would describe as the ants version of a centaur – an antaur? They have the two middle and back segments of an ant, but nothing where their ant head should be. Instead, the top half of a human body grows from the top front of the foremost segment, humanoid while still retaining ant-like features.
I can roughly see five variants to the antaurs on the ground; a tanky type, one clearly flying and three other slightly different but similarly built variants, all too far to properly observe. The ones on the balcony seem like a mix between all three; leaner and fitter but decently armored in the right places, sporting two pairs of transparent wings, one pair larger than the other. A spear in one of their human hands whilst the other has a hovering palm sized ball of fire… I relay what I see as best as I can to the others, though it's easier seen than told.
"I ain't getting a good visual from this," Roy finally cut me off. "Enemy placement, their equipment and behavior, Environmental advantages we can use? We're pressin' for time, no use making up a lame plan, let's get in there for now, slow and quiet get a better feel."
I silently stare at him for a few moments, and he stares back confidently-- Visua… li. za, tion? I perk up. And they definitely notice I did in the way they are instantly alerted, Henry was about to say something, but I managed to cut him off. "I have an idea!"
Visualization… Recreating a rough copy of what I see into the visual illusion was easy enough accomplished within maybe five minutes, though I'm sure pre-System me wouldn't have done it this easily. Next, I push mana into the construct, filling in the recreated scene. The mana would slowly flow to fill into the visuals and imitate its form and color. Our group spent the next ten minutes making plans. Once in a while, they would indicate an area and request for me to provide greater details, I oblige the easy request and decided to check my notifs meanwhile. 'Combat Summary and updates please.'
** DING **
Combat summary
Enemies slain, Participants: 2 - 5:
Big Rat lv 1 x 4
Giant Rat lv 2 x 2
Huge Mosquito lv 3 x 4
ShadowRoach lv 5 x 2
DarkRoach lv 6 x 4
AbbysRoach lv 8 x 1
Terrasian Metepede v 20 x 1
Baron Vespa lv 1 x 6
Viscount Vespa lv 1 x 9
24 syscred and 103 exp awarded
Skill level up, Taunt 8 > 9
Skill level up, Shield Proficiency 3 > 4
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Skill level up, Unarmed Combat Proficiency 7 > 8
Skill level up, Heavy Armor Proficiency 9 > 10
Skill level up, Thrown Weapon Proficiency 5 > 6
Skill level up, Visualization 13 > 14
Skill level up, SoulSense 20 > 1
Trait gained Soul Hearth
Trait gained Devourling Constitution
Initiating assimilation…
Assimilation successful…
Guess going easy equals slow gains… but damn! Planning is booring~. Alone, I would've already been under camo and among the antau -- Druidants by now. My wandering mind also took notice of the way they reacted to me during the stare-out with Roy, did they expect me to attack him? So the whole community probably thinks I'm trigger happy now… geez. A tiny part of me is starting to regret this party business…
But no! Come on man, it's not a bad thing to help increase the average power level of Earth's humans. Even if only a few at a time... Ehh, wait'a-minute! Don't some of these guys have my swarm conjuring spell too?
"I suggest we simply kill them one by one, starting with the upper floor and slowly making our way inside." Agus supplied, "pretty sure we can hit them from far away with the disks."
"They're ain't gonna sit there and let us y'know." Roy reasoned, "what if they started swarming us?"
"Then we use Mr. Zane's lightning storm spell." I can sense the teen sneaking a few peeks in my direction. Hmm~, that might be simple enough to work, assuming we can round them up and hold the line.
"It's not a lightning storm spell," I tell him, ignoring his squeaks of apology. "So, who else besides Henry has Conjure Trilattic Swarm and has got it updated from the store, like about yesterday or today?"
"Pretty sure we all did when we received the message you sent." Kirana said while beside her, Roy nodded along.
"I did..?"
"Doesn't matter if you did, I bet you'll have forgotten." Ain't he just tryna be rude. "So, what plan have you come up with?"
"Rude!" I berated Henry. "But it's the updated feature I'm talking about, have any of you tried to use the Latent Mana they produce?"
"Whazzat?" Roy asks.
"Are you talking about the mists that would gradually emit out of the armor?" Kirana said, a bit of discontent on her face. "Didn't you just incorporate that in to look cool?"
"Ohh that, yeah! I like how it makes me look even more intimidating." Roy testimonies with a big grin. "My squad would say I start to look meaner, tougher, maybe even a slight bit bigger when those mists start pouring out."
That's unexpected of him… "probably because you were, I call it Latent Mana. It is mana infused with my Trait, latent as in hidden potential. What it does is, well, pretty much anything you're creative enough to imagine though still limited by how much mana is available." I explained. "You probably looked meaner because the mana slightly changed how you look, more shadows and stuff. Sturdy because your armor actually got reinforced and taller because the armor probably used some of that mana to create extra layers below you."
The look on their faces seems to convey... "What the hell are you bluffing about?!" Kirana exclaimed while pointing a finger at me…
"It really wasn't just to look cool?" Henry asked me with a serious face. The nerves of these people. "There were reports of people losing their mists but then managed to cast a stronger spell, some feel they hide better with it, and various unexplainable feats. There were too many reports coming in to ignore."
I open up the face on my armor to grin at them, seeing is believing, right? Thirty mana into the armor and a mist of Latent Mana erupts from mine, before my mind alters their properties to recreate the usual camouflage effect. I imagine they are now seeing an unsupported face hovering in the air, I open my mouth and command it to create layers of teeths for added effect.
I honestly didn't expect for Henry to also be dumb-struck. I close my mouth and re-cover my face, in addition to being unmoving, this makes me almost blend in perfectly into the background. "So this one I make by imagining those technological invisibility cloaks on the internet, the ones that use projectors and built-in cameras, I think..."
It worked for me anyways, they'll figure it out. I wouldn't put it past Henry to come up with something even better. While they're busy with that, I'm going in solo to feel things out. Time waits for no one after all. SYMPHONY. "I'm gonna go up to the balcony area to check those guards. This disk will stay here so you can gesture to me when you're ready, remember to be visible." I point to a disk hovering above where I am standing as I make my way towards one of the exits.
"What disk?" I hear Agus ask behind me.
"That one," Henry, I would imagine, is pointing at the disk silently hovering above where I was standing. "He probably forgo… a.ou.. ..."
Ohh right~, camo…
We had determined early on that the ones up top are guards, while the ones on the ground are workers. So statistically, it's better to disable one combat unit rather than one non-combat with a backstab, not to mention that it is strategically better to first claim the higher grounds. Though really, I just prefer to fight the more challenging one.
I need a spell that does soul damage, discovering Rend Psyche would be great. Too bad I have no idea what exactly the spell rends during its passage, space? And why does that translate to rending souls, which makes replicating it a little bit unfeasible. Maybe something simpler…
Exiting the corridor, I stop to observe the situation. Nothing has changed, the Druidant guards still kept to their position by the balcony's edge overlooking their workers, still holding a spear, wood from the looks of it, still nursing a ball of fire, and they're still weird to look at. Each guard maintains a distance of maybe fifteen meters from each other. 'Inspect.'
** DING **
Druidant Sentry lv 12
A closer look reveals that the creature, or this one at least, is maybe 192 - 195 centimeters tall from human head to ant leg if compared to my height of 184. Its ant body is a little wider that its human part, and is maybe 150 centimeters long, the wider anty parts might reach 40 cm in diameters while both its narrow waist might only be about fifteen. Exoskeleton covers every centimeter of its ant body, while its humanoid torso is exo-suited in what I would imagine tribal armor to be. An open faced helm that comes down to its neck and shoulder, then continues on to cover its outer arms and just a bit of armor on its chest.
I ignore this first one and moved deeper while trying to locate a decent hiding place, passing by five more sentries before coming to a halt after spotting a seemingly viable spot. There is an alcove-like area on the wall about 2 meters above, I might just fit sitting down. Spider Climb…
Not bad, the available space barely fits me, but I'm partially hidden and am sitting on a good vantage point. The nearest sentry is two meters below me and maybe seven meters far, the second about eight, maybe nine. A peak at the others tells me they're still trying after about five minutes, totally understandable…
So now, an offensive soul spell…