Chapter Fifty Six

The pack of five wooze swayed in place, not frozen in fear of death, but in awe. The [Beautician] and [Style and Grace] influenced [Shadowed Graves] effect had them admire the killer in front of them. It was only momentarily as their dungeon-influenced aggression overcame it, they twitched forward but not fast enough to get through the cold as their insulation was stripped away and the cold sent them fainting with shock. Harmony let that copy of her fade away with a grin.

Three times she broke her new skill as she worked out exactly how to influence it in the direction she wanted. Every time she pulled a little more understanding of how to tame the random nature of the skill. There had so far been no way of casting the shadow without one effect taking hold. It was probably better to direct responses rather than rely on people's natural instincts to darkness eclipsing them. The next time she worked in a team, hopefully, there was some way of limiting the effect on any adventuring partners.

“Bored,” Hyacinth grumbled out loud, speaking rather than croaking this time. Not everyone could be an exception like him.

“You’re not going to be bored when we have to practice flying again.”

The second floor was still a struggle. There was no getting around the difficulty of such sturdy opponents. Pain from the death of the [Strided] Harmony who'd pulled the attention of three frantic twiggys lingered as she untangled Hyacinth from two vinestrictors crisscrossing vines over the path. "Still bored?"

"Grupt." He huffed as they turned to kill the straggler Harmony hadn't defeated before dying. As for the tree lord, they skipped it. Time to face the birds.

“Graaaaaaaack!” Hyacinth roared at his near-perfect collision with the thunder roc, his massive frame breaking the bird's back with his impact from above. This time it didn’t rise higher into the sky as it faltered enough to crash into the ground, dragging them through the dirt and grass in a wild ride that ripped up the turf and dislocated Harmony’s shoulder. Not dead yet, Hyacinth used his spurs to strike while Harmony focused [High Kick] on unbroken parts of the roc's wings. The arcs of electric pain stabbed them in response, and even then it tried to run rather than attack. When the last spark faded and the head slumped down it died.

Hyacinth pushed her arm back into place before she downed the restoration potion allowing the pain to be a dull ache only lingering because of the memory of it. “Ready for the fourth floor?”

The stairs up the sky were a bit rough on the massive toad. “Gwah!”

“Fine, I’ll make shadows so we can hop up quicker.” [Shadowed Graves] and her familiar’s teleportation put them only a few steps away from the entrance to the next floor. After this dungeon, she was sure he would declare stairs his greatest enemy.

A well-planned strategy was efficient and monotonous, but at least Hyacinth had fun on this floor. [Dust] worked remarkably well on the attempted sprays of pollen. They’d even managed to collect a weighty amount of the valuable resource. Without that attack the deadly flowers were weak. The pollen was alive, so trying to synergize the skill with [Manipulate Dead] was useless. So much pollen ended up in dust during the spring so losing that synergy hardly mattered. [Shadowed Graves] wasn't needed here and she wanted to save her mana for other skills.

The crickets… well, Hyacinth was the oversized apex predator for those oversized locusts. He munched on them like they were the most delicious snack while she used [Small Armor] and other movement skills to dance, and dodge away from them.

“Quit snacking on those ones and get the rest, ya fat idiot!” Harmony cried as she rolled away from a pair.

Sometimes he got too invested in the treat. An aura from [Cold Touch] helped slow the locust, but only a little. That didn’t mean she was without bites that needed some [Mending] after fights with swarms of more than a dozen. Hyacinth feeling that pain too meant he got really serious when that happened.

Harmony used [Manipulate Dead] to clean off some splattered bug goop on her while Hyaching finished munching on the last of the floor’s locust. There had been no plan to take on the guardian of the fourth floor today. “Want to do it?”

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“Groak.”

Harmony nodded. He would say, why not? This was paradise for him and it’s not like he got bit half a dozen times on this floor. You’d think he’d be more cautious of a snake big enough to try to swallow him. The bastard that it was. That’s what the guides all called it. B.a.s.t.a.r.d, Big ass snake targeting all range damage. You couldn’t even taunt or harass the thing off-target. Fighting it was probably a nightmare for Len or Rose when they went through this floor if they wanted to use their skills.

The snake sat coiled on a mound. You get one free shot to wake it. That wasn’t a good thing. It would take one damage and be impervious to all damage for the first five seconds and mad as hell.

Of all the opponents guides were most mixed on how to defeat this guardian. They generally boiled down into three separate camps. One is cross-class impersonation by having the range dealers only use melee-weapons and the tank pretends to be a range hero. You need an extra sturdy tank, maybe an elusive dodge tank. If someone slipped up it would switch targets to the real range fighter. The second most popular way is stab-n-go, one very brave and extremely fast person pokes the snake and then runs it into an ambush. How to make that ambush successful was a different story. Last was a team heavy in snares and slows that worked as long as the range damage dealer the bastard targeted had a good escape mechanism. They would then zig-zag through a team as the others wore it down.

The failures and unique successes held a particular interest. One team layered blessings, buffs, and boons on the sleeping snake, and then five seconds after it woke up a hexer reversed those benefits. The hexer was an evolved class along for the ride but it worked. One person tried to gently tie up the snake but they were too rough and piled on too much weight, and with a tick of damage, it would awake. They were half successful in that it did delay the snake as it thrashed out of their bonds. One group sealed it up tight, planning to poison it, the survivor revealed that it could dig down into the ground and then pop up elsewhere taking some damage in the process.

As long as you avoided damaging the snake you were fine. Failures often used that fact thinking they were the smartest adventure and had the perfect solution. Some tried a healing spell or shield that negated damage and then moved to remove scales, both through necromancy and other methods ended in disaster. Removing even one scale counted as damage.

Harmony approached the sleeping snake. Do no harm. How about making it beautiful? Snakeskin was made out of the same material as nails. That created so many interesting options. There was never a doubt she was going to use that against it. Turn it into spikes to hamper movement. See if you can get it to stab in. Remove sheets of skin so [Cold Touch] could be effective. Standing next to it, a head so large it could swallow Hyacinth, she calmed her breathing and focused. None of those little tricks would be enough to stop it. None of the highly sensitive ladies who’d undergone beauty treatments had ever complained about pain.

[Manipulate Dead] synergized with [Beautician] as she approached it first smoothing and strengthening some, then for the risky part. [Mend] joined the fold adding its strength. That old knight might have been able to snap out of his armor after she'd sealed it at the joints but she hadn't had unlimited time and effort. This snake though, as nothing happened after she fused and smoothed the scales together, when she was done with it it would be a monument of her time polishing and hardening a bunch of old women’s brittle nails.

The whole project took time. It was better to over-engineer than under. The sheer scale and size of the snake was an issue. [Stride] gave a like-minded assistant, able to burn through all the needed skills while boosted by [Mana Rotation] for the brief time she had herself.

Hyacinth didn’t even complain. All that took was a promise.

With a cast of [Shadowed Graves], Harmony stood next to Hyacinth, spitting distance of the bastard. “You can do the honors.”

Hyacinth spat out his tongue striking the snake in the eye. Barely a hit, but enough to count. The shadows above and below meant they could escape if needed.

The giant snake's eyes shot open. Its jaws opened wide with a loud angry hiss. Harmony had avoided the head, as it would be the most sensitive spot. It struck. At least it tried, body trapped in a hardened immobile shell of its own skin.

“Gweh, gweh, gweh!” Hyacinth laughed in the face of what could be considered an apex predator to him as much as he’d been for the locust.

The guardian vibrated with rage, its invulnerability ticking down. All it could do is vibrate.

A well-executed plan was a wonderful thing. [Manipulate Dead] ripped away the weakest scales around the target’s head. Frost formed at the necromancer’s fingertips [Cold Touch] ready for extended use. “I’ll try not to make this last too long. Let the chill numb any pain.” Her tone held zero pity, but there was no point in being cruel. Hyacinth continued to laugh as Harmony approached to finish it off. Hyacinth could be cruel enough for both of them if needed.