It was an indoor swamp.
Which looked a lot like what I’d imagine a natural sewer system might look like.
“The Dispatcher’s and the Authority’s Dungeons are both Common Dungeons, so we only have one monster per floor with those.” Rix changed the screen to show seven monsters. The four floor monsters and the first three Boss monsters.
“First floor is a Giant Rat and the boss is a Rat King. Second Floor is a Spitting Snake and the boss is a Giant Python. Third floor is a Leech Head and the boss is a King Sucker. Fourth floor spawns were Cube Slimes.” I looked at the list as I read them off. “This event floor might spawn less monsters, but those Cubes look a lot like the Slimes in Harror.” I smiled, “This might be easier to farm experience than the Temple Dungeon.”
“Acid Slimes were weak to ice?” Fray looked down at her hands.
“You’ll be fine.” I reached across the table and took her hands. I wondered if they might still hurt even though Justia had healed the burns from when she’d used a weapon above her level to help us beat the Giant Acid Slime.
“Yeah…” Fray looked up at me and forced a smile.
I patted her hands then leaned back. “So the Casters need ice spells for the Cubes, what about the others?”
“Don’t you need a blunt weapon to smash the ice?” Shelly shifted in his seat.
“You do.” Ether agreed. “Which emphasizes that our Hitters need both types of weapons.” She pointed at the other monsters, “But they’ll need weapons that can cut for the rest of them.”
The Giant Rats were large enough that their shoulders would come up past my knee. The Rat King was even larger and looked like its shoulders would come past my waist.
“Do we know what elements they are?” I pointed at the rats.
“Rats don’t have an affinity, snakes and cubes are acid, and the leeches are water.” Rix sounded confused about that last part.
“That means that any earth weapons we get from the Temple we can use on that floor.” Fray looked a little more relieved. “Maybe that’s where we should farm?”
The Leech Heads were about the same size as the Giant Rats and looked like they were chubby cats with nothing but a round mouth that was full of teeth for a face. The King Sucker was waist high and it had a tentacle coming out of each of its front shoulders. Each tentacle also looked like it had a toothy sucker on the end of it.
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“Okay, let’s start at the beginning.” I had the window zoom in on the rats. “King Rat?”
“Beast type monsters tend to die when you stab their heart.” Shelly pointed at the thing’s chest. “Taunt it. Bind it. Then let the Hitter go for the heart?”
“What about the Shooter?” Rix folded her arms in front of her.
“Oh, I…” Shelly looked away. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay Mitchel.” I patted him on the shoulder as I looked at Rix. “Actually, don’t most Shooters go into a Speed based Hitter subclass?”
“Your options for damage are pure Speed, which is really just faster and more accurate shots. Sub Power, which usually go daggers, dual wielding, or…” Rix tapped her CB. “A Chainsword.” She held up two fingers. “Then you have Sub Aura, which is debuffs, like Vena and Sub Magic, which use spells for ammo like you and Aelin.”
“Which means that we’d need to compensate for the possibility of the Shooters we get assigned to potentially be melee.” I looked over at Ether. “Would that change things too much?”
“A melee build would focus on the back legs and try to cripple it.” Ether thought for a moment. “For the Temple Dungeons, they’d need to go with hammers, which would just mean having to rotate attacks with the Hitter.”
“Sounds good.” I moved the window to the Giant Python. “I have a feeling that this is going to be like the Skeletal Snake boss on the Cathedral first floor.”
“We can’t fight it the same way.” Ether closed her eyes as she thought.
I saw what she was talking about. The Skeletal Snake had exposed ribs on its lower half. I’d been able to bind its spine and that had locked it pretty much in place. The Giant Python didn’t have that exploit. If I tried to bind it, it would be able to just slither out unless we were able to gouge it somehow.
“Wouldn't ice work on them too?” Shelly looked around the table. “Since reptiles slow down in the cold, then if we lowered the temperature of the room, wouldn’t that at least slow it down?”
“That could work.” Rix pointed at the Cube Slime. “We’ll already need to invest in ice attacks and spells to farm the Cubes, so we would already have those.”
“Have the Casters use a Freeze spell to try to hold it in place, while the Hitter and the Shooter try to take off the head?” I smirked, “That’d be exactly like how we did the Skeletal Snake.” I pushed Shelly’s shoulder. “Good job.”
Ether sighed as she opened her eyes. “That leaves the King Sucker since our strategy for the Cube Slimes is going to be freeze and smash. And that’s only if we can’t destroy their cores by ourselves.”
“Right, so the King Sucker is weak to earth and looks like it has a fairly soft body. Take off the tentacles first, then focus on the core?” I looked around the table.
“That seems a little too easy.” Rix zoomed in on King Sucker. “I don’t know why, but I get the feeling that these things are fast.”
“So we’ll have trouble hitting them?” I looked her over. “Are you afraid that you wouldn’t be able to keep up with it?”
“No…” Rix shrugged. “They just look like a predator, but this picture makes them look…”
“Harmless?” Fray raised her voice barely above a whisper. I was sitting across from her and had trouble hearing her.
“Exactly.” Apparently Rix’s hearing was much better than mine.
“Any ideas on how to compensate for that?” I didn’t know what they were seeing, but I wasn’t going to question Rix.
“We’ll just have to see…” The redhead shrugged. “Last Dungeon. What would we do if we went to the Authority Dungeon?”