Sam looked at Janik, hoping his idea would be amazing because seven of the Frogmen and one BossFrog felt... overwhelming for them without any AOE spells or items.
“The plan is simple but relies on you and Elara. We try to poison them. Elara can probably sneak around but she would die if she’s hit once. But you can use her venom on spikes and launch them from wherever, as the venom works... or not... you relocate.” Janik smiled a bit more sadistically than Sam would have liked him to. “The best would be if you could move it to somewhere they would step, on a splinter or something, making it look random and accidental.”
Janik’s idea was... weird and a bit tedious, but it sounded like it had a high success rate. If they made some natural-looking splinters, he could move it around with one Psyhand and use the remaining Energy to extend his range. If he moved it where they were walking it looked random, or if he stabbed their hands with them as they touched some wood. It was a stretch but depending on their intelligence and Sam’s subtlety... If the splinters were venomed it could work?
“That’s a stretch, don’t you think?” Sam whispered back.
“Oh yeah, absolutely. But imagine you getting a splinter from some dirty-ass bog-wood, and the system tells you that you’re poisoned. Would you think it was a trap?” Janik’s smile grew wider.
Sam didn’t have a response. It was a decent idea now that he considered the scene from the other way. If he was walking about in some wooden outpost like this and... as Janik stated, if he got a splinter and got poisoned. The first thing jumping to his mind wouldn’t be that they were being invaded... It just sounded so dumb.
This did revolve heavily around him being able to sneak around and do this over and over again until he was either found out or Elara was out of Venom.
“I suppose we’ll make some splinters, then.” Sam commented in a weird confusing tone.
Janik smiled as they headed away from the clearing to get some distance to make some noise. Stopping after they felt satisfied Janik started by breaking a branch, it splintered as though it was relatively dry, but it was still somewhat alive. However, the splintered point was perfect to use a knife and some wiggling to get a good wooden needle of sorts out.
“We’ll dry them with my lighter to give them the extra hardness for this, but this should work!” He looked surprisingly happy as he took out his little lighter and started heat-treating his little splinter.
A few minutes later it looked done, some tidying up and sharpening with one of Sam’s daggers later and it... looked the part. A bit big, perhaps, but still something you wouldn’t think twice of finding anywhere in a forest. Wondering a brief moment if he could spread one dose of venom across several splinters, as they were so small, Sam decided to make a few more splinters before they started envenoming them.
As they continued with the process, using up Janik’s lighter fluid, Sam came to think of something.
“What if the Venom doesn’t kill them, they make it out of it or if I need to use all of the doses on one target?”
If worst came to worst all ten available doses could be resisted.
“That’s fine, I think it’s a safe and good enough idea to give it a try, even though it might not work, we might get lucky that we get at least one target taken out covertly. If nothing else this is kind of fun, don’t you think?” He looked legitimately amused and happy about what they were doing.
Sam hadn’t considered it before now, he was so focused on the crafting and plan that he didn’t take the metaphorical step back to relax and think about it. Ignoring that they were going to use this to just straight up murder the beastfolk in the Dungeon, the Dungeon monsters seemed universally against them... Though invading their home probably had something to do with this. At the same time, after the hundreds of Goblins he had just cut and stabbed without provoking, he was used to it to a dangerous level.
The crafting and dumb ideas were amusing and entertaining, so though it had some undertones of an insane serial killer, and ignoring the fact that they were using much longer time than ‘proper’ on this dungeon, it was kind of neat.
Once the ten needles were done, Sam started the envenoming or rather had Elara start. He instructed her to try and coat several with one dose and spread it out a bit. But the System had other ideas. As soon as her venom contacted one of them, the needle changed its name to [ Venom Splinter - Venom 1 ], meaning that it consumed the dose entirely and changed the hue to an off-blue colour similar to the needle.
Since the venom was absorbed into the wood, the off-hue looked like something you could find in wood or perhaps some fungal thing, meaning it looked natural enough even though the venom had an electric blue colour to it.
Though that said, he did check the information about it and couldn’t find any expiring time. He knew that normal snake venom only lasted for so long, a few weeks at best or something, he didn’t know. But these didn’t seem like they expired at all.
That was very good news indeed.
“Ok, since I just need to move the one, I can expand my Area to 23.5m/75ft. That should give me a lot more wiggle room when it comes to range. I’ll focus on one target at a time and basically re-stab him with new needles until I’m out or he’s dead, and we’ll take it from there. What if I get discovered?”
“Oh, don’t worry, if you’re discovered, just find cover, I’ll be sneaking with you as best I can. Use me as cover if needed, but if I tell you to exit, we both go.” Again this didn’t sound like a request or information, it sounded like a hard order.
Sam nodded, he was fine with this. They had gotten far so all of this was good for now. If they had to restart it was fine.
Having all ten splinters ready, he put them in a small container made of some folded bark. It was extremely simple but worked as a quiver of sorts for now. Sneaking back to the place they were in before they found that everyone had moved, this could sound like a bad thing but also meant that they could go somewhere to make them into an easier target.
Sam did his best to sneak around the perimeter of the clearing, looking for an opening to start their plan. It took a while of waiting and waiting, growing almost boring, but finally, there was a point where one of them looked like he was about to cross one of the trees that worked as a bridge. It was within Sam’s extended range so he hurriedly moved the splinter in his path, keeping it flat until he was about to step on it. Once his foot was in the path he lifted it and propped it against the wood. The frogman stepped on it as planned and let out a pained sound, almost like a swear-like stepping on a needle, as it was a close comparison it felt proper.
[ The target successfully saved against [ Venom 1 ]! ]
Lifting his foot he looked at it and pulled out the splinter, a dissatisfied sigh later he flicked it into the bog, not seeming to consider it more.
It took a short while before someone else came into a good position, also walking barefoot across the bridge logs. Sam repeated the process as last time!
[ The target failed to save against [ Venom 1 ]! ]
Sam smiled widely as it worked, it only took a few seconds before the next message.
[ The target successfully saved against [ Venom 1 ]! ]
Sam internally cursed, but that didn’t last long at all. To maximize the effect he kept targeting the same frogman with the remaining splinters.
Splinters 3, 6, 7 and 8 failed outright. Splinters 4 and 5 lasted a few seconds, and 9 lasted only a moment.
The math was simple, Sam got a ping every time the save failed or succeeded, so a total of 8 damage was all they managed with this.
The frogman who had suddenly been unlucky enough to find ten splinters in a short while was getting fucking livid, yelling out things in annoyance, the others seemed to simply laugh at his misfortune, which made him angrier. Even with the language barrier it wasn’t hard to guess the base idea of what was being said and shouted.
“Well, that’s it, we’re out.” Sam commented to Janik, who sighed silently.
“It was worth the try. Also... kind of fun, to be honest.” Janik’s smile was still on his lips even though it didn’t work out. “When Elara gets a more powerful Venom, this is going to be very fun to use.”
Sam couldn’t agree more, both on it being a little fun but when the efficiency increased it would be better.
“Well, we’ll change gears.” Janik whispered. “I think Elara is the better choice for this. She can slither out and get their attention, then come over to us. If we can get them one and one into the woods we can ambush them. Seeing a snake and perhaps being bored or whatever, might have them want to kill it...” Janik knew how this sounded.
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“I am fine with it if Master allows.” Elara whispered back, both of them turning to Sam.
Sam didn’t like the pressure of the situation, but he was right in that it was a much better idea than just going out there and gambling. But he didn’t want to risk it, she didn’t have any defences and the damage they could do would just outright kill her.
“I don’t like it... She has a decent amount of HP now but she’ll die from one hit. I get that she might be hard to target but... I don’t want to risk it.” Sam felt a bit awkward. It was a good idea, but he couldn’t let Elara risk her life like that... He was kind of understanding how Janik felt. He also chose to not consider if Elara felt useless in the scenario, her venom doing barely anything of value and she not being allowed to be the decoy.
“Understandable, it was worth considering.” Janik agreed, and though there was a hint of dissatisfaction in there he accepted it without question. “Then I suppose we’ll just have to lure them in one by one or go after them hoping for the best.”
Sam had to agree there, without a better solution they had to kind of hope.
Taking a moment to plan how to do it, the simplest was to just make a noise as someone was closer than the rest, hoping that they would come into the forest. And this worked for a few of them!
The first one walked into the forest all too calmly, seemed like he expected it to be an animal or something, 20 daggers later he fell instantly. This was noticed by someone, who came to investigate, though he entered the forest line with more vigour and care, 20 daggers handled that as well.
Though their luck changed at that point, two of the remaining ones noticed something was wrong and shouted some tongue-undulating sound, followed by something shouted in their language which brought great care and uncertainty towards their part of the woods.
Janik and Sam decided to move spots, but not before Janik took the two spears with him, leaving the area they were in and doing their best to sneak away to find a better spot. The idea worked fine for a short while until the Chief noticed them moving, he pointed at the two and yelled out something, which had the remaining five frogmen charge them.
They had some good valuable seconds using range to their advantage, Janik nodded towards them in a ‘do your thing’ way as he readied a spear for throwing. Sam did as he was instructed, his 20 daggers and shorter range were still good to go from the ambushes before. As soon as they stepped within his Area he let the daggers fly.
Several attacks were missed, but with two Critical hits and many more landing, the first Frogman fell mid-step in a burst of blood. This didn’t stop the others from charging in. One of them threw their spear at the invaders but not knowing where their exact location had the spear miss completely. Sam was hiding behind a tree, letting him see them without being seen in return, for now at least. Using this he moved the daggers to the next in line.
Again a lot of daggers missed but more hit, shredding him up as the swarm of daggers hovered menacingly in the air. Leaving them in plain sight like that had them doubt and stop and reconsider. The leader croaked something to them and pointed in the air, which had two of them run to the sides and enter the forest further up and down. This felt like a surrounding tactic which would work wonders.
They had to trust each other, Sam did not doubt that Janik realised this as well, and the fact that he threw both spears at them, one landed extremely solid and killed the frogman, and the second hit the boss who was now nearing their location, it seemed to do damage but not enough to take him down.
This attack pissed him off considerably. A surprisingly powerful and oddly terrifying roar came from the boss. Sam decided to ignore him for now and pull his blades back into the forest. Luckily enough the Frog coming for him wasn’t sneaking very well, and could be heard from surprisingly far away. In the forest, it was much harder to hit a target, with movement, cover and trees making things worse. Though many blades missed or hit cover still enough of them made it through that Sam’s opponent fell instantly.
Turning around to face the boss he realised something horrifying. The Chief was standing next to him.
Sam’s body froze for a second as the boss thrust his spear towards him. The Emergency Escape message didn’t have the time to pop up and activate before Janik had covered the distance and kicked the back of the spear, ruining the thrust completely.
Getting some distance right away, Sam briefly saw Janik’s face, he had thrown caution to the wind and bolted through the forest, raking branches and plants across his face without considering it, but it had saved his life.
The chief didn’t even turn around but kicked backwards, a surprisingly long-range kick landed in his gut, sending him flying backwards. Sam knew he needed to get far enough away that the Chief couldn’t just catch up to him again, letting Janik take care of the situation for now he just kept running.
Having run for a brief moment, looking around in panic he wondered if the Chief had followed him, the sound of battle still happening confirmed that it hadn’t.
Doing his best to speed-sneak back, he found himself close enough to affect the battle again. Janik was looking bad, he had taken several hits and was bleeding, the Chief had also taken a few hits but was looking in better shape.
Sam brought the daggers in like before, taking a few seconds to aim, though this gave the Chief a moment to attack yet again, he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to make sure he hit. Janik had entered a defensive stance, similar to when he fought the PvP man earlier. He was defending well but couldn’t get any blows in.
A bunch of the daggers missed, hitting trees, just straight up missing due to the Chief’s movements or slapping sideways onto his body doing no damage. However, enough daggers hit. The vampiric dagger activated and many landed true, embedding themselves deep in the body of the Chief.
With Janik’s earlier dealt damage as well as Sam’s dagger swarm, the Chief fell to the massive wounds he had obtained, falling forward and landing on the forest floor with a mighty thud.
The swordsman didn’t leave anything to chance, he stepped in and embedded both his swords deep through the Frog Chief’s head, twisting both blades before yanking them back out. Taking a few steps back he was looking in horrible shape but he was still standing.
“Yes!” he exclaimed as he lifted both his hands in the air, blood from his sword flying off and splattering across the trees.
He looked honestly happy though it contrasted as he was covered in wounds and gore.
Though Sam was also happy to have succeeded, he also felt a bit weird as he almost died a minute ago. Though this was beginning to become a thing he didn’t like how easily killed he was becoming.
As he started walking over to Janik, planning to comment on his appearance, the Dungeon Clear window popped up.
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Frogman chief. 1/1 - Completed
Optional: Kill all monsters
Monsters: 20/20 - Completed
Rewards:
1500 xp
1x Healing potion - D
Bonus rewards for optional step:
1000 xp
Random Box - X
Chance (1%) - Success: Random Skill Crystal - C (25%). ]
Like before it auto-completed a few seconds after displaying itself and what it succeeded in getting, meaning that the 1% chance of getting something extra neat succeeded!
The window didn’t close itself but it dumped the rewards in Sam’s hands like the previous times, the XP just happened but manifesting in his hands was a nice-looking box with a Healing potion and a skill crystal lying on top of it.
[ Companion Elara, level up +1! ]
He had stopped keeping track of her XP, it was surprising how fast it came flowing, but then again the first 10 levels didn’t need that much XP, it was from that point onwards that it started needing a lot since it doubled every level so far. He halfway on autopilot put her point in Vitality yet again.
He saw that Janik was in a similar situation, though he didn’t seem to get the crystal, just the potion and a random box. If nothing else this only confirmed to Sam that the quest rewards for doing the same quest in a group aren’t always the same. He hadn’t properly noticed that before.
Both of them thought the same thing and opened the Random box right away, no need to wait, after all.