In violation of the Laws of Maze Traversing, Will took the tunnel that was on his left when he’d first entered the dungeon. He had a feeling that the central exit would lead him in the direction of the boss, and preferred to clear out the normal enemies first.
The next monster Will faced was significantly larger than the first two, but was just as busy digging at the wall as the others. It, too, turned to face Will as soon as the wombat entered the room. It moved quickly, though not nearly as fast as the Speed Metal Devourer.
Will didn’t waste any time, and started the fight with a Thundershade Volley. The bolts all hit the monster at the same time, but failed to penetrate the insect like creature’s tough carapace.
Meanwhile, Will’s monkey minion closed in and Power Attacked the monster with its fists. Once again, the target seemed to shrug off the attack. It also retaliated, using one of its antennae to throw the Light Beast to the other side of the room.
Heavy defense, and seems to pack a serious punch. Will thought. This will be fun. Not.
With his Mage skill seemingly ineffective, Will turned to his other trusty opener, the charge. Unstoppable Force met Immovable Object, and Immovable Object won.
At least, in the sense of staying immovable, while the Unstoppable Force was, in fact, stopped. In the sense of having a sharp nose horn pierce through its carapace and skewer it, on the other hand, victory was clearly on the other side.
The hit and sudden stop jarred Will enough that he couldn’t follow up on his attack, and the monster smashed both of its antennae on his head in response.
And it smashed hard. Even through his armor, Will’s head rang from the blow. But the attack cost the monster, since it ripped Will’s nose horn out of its body, dealing more damage on the way out than it did on the way in.
And Will didn’t stay still for long. Like Will’s charge attack, the wombat’s claws were up to dealing average damage with every hit, and was ignoring one level of armor. Which was enough to pierce the creature’s tough carapace.
In addition to Will’s attack, the Mandrill had returned. Instead of attacking the monster uselessly, Will had it jump on its back and grab the antennae. It wasn’t even to stop the creature from attacking Will, but it slowed the attacks significantly, letting Will avoid any more hits.
At that point, the battle was more or less finished, but the monster hadn’t gotten the memo yet. It took five more minutes of slashing through its chitin armor and dodging the heavy antennae before the beast was finally down for the count.
Power Metal Devourer slain!
Gained 10 XP
Power like the beat of his heart!
Which he doesn’t even have!
Cause, you know, insects.
Power now? I’d have expected strength or something, from how the fight went. On the other hand, it’s not like the Black Metal Devourer was actually black. But the Speed Metal Devourer certainly was fast. So why do some of the names make sense and some don’t?
Wait.
Power Metal Devourer. Speed Metal Devourer. Black Metal Devourer. Are these things named after heavy metal genres? That’s…
Well, that’s actually better than the moles. Still weird, but at least they’re not puns.
Harvesting the Power Metal Devourer’s corpse got Will another piece of chitin, but this one was of excellent quality. And the wall had another lump of ore for him to extract.
The Metal Devourer in the next room looked… average.
It was the same size as the Black Metal Devourer, which was somewhere between the Speed and the Power Metal Devourers, but lacked the corpse paint.
As usual, as soon as Will entered the room, the monster turned to him. And Will suddenly realized he was wrong. This wasn’t some average, nondescript monster. This was the most dangerous Metal Devourer of all. It was far too strong for Will to fight. There wasn’t any point to it. He’d just lose anyway. It was better to just sit down and wait for the monster to end things.
The wombat sat down and closed his eyes, just waiting for the…
Wait a minute. Why the hell am I this scared of this thing? It’s just another Metal Devourer, and doesn’t even look like a strong one!
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Snapping out of his despair, Will opened his eyes and rose to his feet. The Metal Devourer was still approaching him, as inevitable as the heat death of the universe. There was no doubt about it. Will stood no chance against the dreadful monster. Once again, Will closed his eyes in despair and waite…
What the hell? Why was I so afraid again all of a sudden? And why aren’t I feeling it now? Wait. It stopped as soon as I closed my eyes. Is that some sort of mental attack that it uses? If so, I need to fight it with my eyes closed, somehow.
Careful not to open his eyes, Will ordered his Light Beast to attack. The Mandrill wasn’t actually a living creature, and didn’t seem to be affected by the monster’s fear attack.
Not content to just let the minion fight for him, Will aimed a Thundershade Cone in the direction he’d last seen the monster, and just kept maintaining it the message informing him of his victory popped up.
Doom Metal Devourer slain!
Gained 10 XP
Doom like the inevitable final beat of his heart!
Which he doesn’t even have!
Cause, you know, insects.
This one was definitely not fun. If this works like the other dungeons and I’m going to start fighting them in groups, I might actually have to abandon this. Then again, The Speed Metal Devourer was easy once I through the iron lump at it, so maybe I’ll just need to distract them? I mean, this was still marked as an easy dungeon, wasn’t it?
The room was another dead end, so after another round of looting and mining, Will went back to the entrance room, and into the final tunnel, expecting to start seeing two monsters in every room.
The dungeon, however, seemed intent on surprising him, and the first room in the central tunnel still had just one monster.
This one looked indistinguishable from the Doom Metal Devourer, and Will was prepared to shut his eyes and fight blindly, when the monster turned his way and growled.
The sound was so low it was barely audible, but as soon as Will heard it, pain exploded in his entire body. A quick check of his status screen showed Will that his health was dropping steadily, and he knew he had to finish the fight quickly.
Thundershade Burst blasted into the Metal Devourer, causing it to stagger drunkenly and stopping its growling attack.
Will charged at the monster, accompanied by his Mandrill, but as he got closer to the monster, the pain returned, and his health started dropping again, even without the growling. Ordinarily, the pain would have caused Will’s muscles to lock down in response, but for once, Unstoppable lived up to its name and Will’s charge continued on unabated.
It was after the charge ended, and Will’s nose horn was stuck through the creature’s carapace, that Will’s muscles stopped responding. Fortunately, by that point the monster was wounded badly enough that the Light Beast could finish it off.
Death Metal Devourer slain!
Gained 10 XP
Death like when you stopped his heart!
Which he doesn’t even have!
Cause, you know, insects.
Yeah, that description just didn’t make sense any more. I think you’re seriously reaching there. Maybe it’s time for the dungeon to end, before you need to make any more of those?
Snark aside, Will had to spend a while to rest after the fight, even using one of his minor healing potions to recover from the damage the Death Metal Devourer did.
I honestly have no idea how this dungeon is classified at the same difficulty as the other two. If I’d come here back when I did the Root Celler, I’d be dead at least twice by now. And throwing iron lumps around as bait wouldn’t have worked, since I didn’t even have Mining at that point!
Hell, I’m not sure I can win against some of the possible combinations here even now.
None of those thoughts, however, stopped Will from moving deeper into the dungeon. After, of course, the standard round of harvesting both monster and mine.
The next room held a Crankscout. For some reason, the automaton wasn’t even trying to camouflage itself. Its gleaming brass plates shone in the torchlight, and the whirring of its cogs seemed oddly melodic, for some reason.
Still, camouflaged or not, melodic or not, Crankscouts have stopped being a problem for Will a couple of cycles ago. And unlike the real residents of the dungeon, it didn’t seem to have any special ability.
CrankscoutIndustrial Metal Devourer slain!
Gained 10 XP
Industrial like the pacemaker of his heart!
Which he doesn’t even have!
Cause, you know, insects.
Well, I guess it really was camouflaged after all? Somewhat? It’s weird how it seems to cheat the message window though.
There wasn’t an iron lump to be harvested in the room, but the Crankscout, errr… Industrial Metal Devourer had one of the expected brass cogs waiting for Will to harvest.
After the Crankscout, Will the dungeon went back to actual Metal Devourers. At least, Will thought his next enemy was a Metal Devourer, underneath the long, thick and very poofy blonde wig and gaudy make up.
Just looking at the thing was enough to nearly blind Will. He had to squint his eyes to protect them, causing the monster to blur. Will’s first Thundershade Volley simply missed its target, since Will couldn’t see it clearly.
Switching over to Cone made it easier to aim, but Will still found himself having to recenter the spell every second or so, after blinking out some more tears.
Still, the fight was far less intense than some of the other Metal Devourers Will had seen before, and the Thundershade Cone was enough to end the battle, eventually.
Glam Metal Devourer slain!
Gained 10 XP
Glamorous like his shining heart!
Which he doesn’t even have!
Cause, you know, insects.
Well, at least we’re back to reasonable descriptions, I guess? For a given value of ‘reasonable’, at least.
Shaking his head at the increasingly silly descriptions, Will finished his post-battle business and walked to the next room.