The group stood at the start of the last bridge, leading over to the drawbridge into the fortress. Behind them were a lot of broken golems and dead harpies. The latter had mostly fallen off ledges and into the ravines and chasms of the mountain ranges, meaning their Cores were not exactly accessible. Dia did her best with what she could reach, and only got her hands on one Harpy, and most of the Golems as their central ‘torso’ rolled around and off ledges at times. Netting them a total of 10 Golem Cores and 4 Harpy cores so far.
A problem at this point was that though there were only two Golems tossing rocks at them, they were high on the fortress walls. And since the bridge stopped before reaching the walls as the drawbridge was currently up, they had a slight problem.
“Well... they are out of my range, even if we get over there,” Sam commented in an annoyed tone as he kept capturing incoming rocks. “Let me try something.”
Dia and Janik were standing behind him, looking at him with a curious expression as he didn’t detail what he was planning.
Having a metaphorical pocket full of large rocks, there was no lacking ammo to try and attack from range. The stones didn't have a listed damage value, so this was also a good test for the Cluster Launch.
Storing the remaining weapons, he kept a few hands free to be able to catch incoming rocks as the two Golems up there didn’t show any signs of stopping. Holding a rock with 40 of his hands he did his best to aim, it was a considerable distance but at the speeds he expected this to fly there shouldn’t be much of an arc. Taking his time as he kept up the catching and releasing of incoming projectiles, he eventually pulled the metaphorical trigger.
There was a dull thumping sound as the head-size rock flew at breakneck speeds towards the Golem. As the Golem was hanging over the wall to throw a rock, Sam’s attack landed in its chest with a sharp and powerful cracking snap sound. Both the rock and the Golem’s chest shattered as the energy transferred and rebounded back.
The rock was destroyed, but so was the Golem. Sam was surprised, to the point that he almost missed catching one of the incoming rocks. “Dude... That’s a lot of damage for something that’s supposed to not do damage.” He commented as he took a rock out of storage to re-inspect it. There were no values attached to it, it was just a rock, weighing about the same as a washing bucket of water.
“How does that even work...?” He asked hesitantly to nobody in particular.
He didn’t get any responses.
Attempting to hit the other one needed a few tries, a bit off on timing or just simply missing had the rocks zoom past it into the mountainside, or hit the fortress wall, in both cases, it shattered completely.
The fourth attempt hit the Golem, shattering them both.
As the incoming rocks stopped falling, Janik moved up to stand beside Sam. “I can see why people don’t like this Dungeon. It’s short and relatively simple, but everything can in theory take you out right away if they knock you off. Ranged attackers can do their thing, as can mages, but they all run out of resources. The XP is pretty good for the relative simplicity of the Dungeon, which is why it’s sometimes run by mages a few times but...”
Sam could tell Janik was hinting at the repeated comment about resources and running out. Mages might take out the monsters in here easier than Sam could, not to mention more reliable at high range, but they ran out of mana. There was also a seemingly endless supply of rocks being thrown his way, if he took advantage of that perhaps he could find a good way to speedrun this place.
“So, how do we open this thing?” Sam asked his group as he walked the rest of the bridge, stopping far enough away that it didn’t feel that the drawbridge would hit him if it fell.
“Well, it’s held up by those chains, no? There has to be something moving it.” Janik analysed as he looked around. “We just need to find the mechanism.”
“Or.” Sam started as soon as Janik was done. “We cheat.”
Taking out a stone from his storage, he took his time and aimed at the connection point in the woodwork where the chain was fastened.
Using his full 44-hand pulse he sent it flying after a moment of aiming, missing the first four times he made a hole in the drawbridge, removed its corner as well and made a few solid dents in the wall before he finally hit the point. The hit tore the plate it was connected to out of the woodwork with severe force, sending it mangled into the wall before the drawbridge creaked from the uneven weight on the remaining chain.
Hitting the other point happened on the first try, a lucky shot but it looked amazing as the rock soared through the sky and destroyed the whole thing. The drawbridge, now free from its lifting chains, came slamming down onto the mountain bridge with a loud crash. Sam was a bit surprised that it didn’t take more damage from it as it still looked traversable and safe.
“Universal keys.” Sam smiled, feeling a bit proud of his jokes and actions.
“That works, though I’m sure the guide had the intended way written, but I suppose we don’t need that now.” Janik smiled in response.
Sam started walking across the bridge, feeling safe that he’d be fine regardless. If it crashed down he hadn’t used the Telekinetic Boost yet, and with it, he could lift all of them at the same time. Having briefly tested this in private he found it wasn’t an issue to fly with it. It almost felt like moving an action figure around in the air, the main problem was the 44-second duration, so he didn’t want to overuse it.
Though, thinking about it now, he needed to test the speed he could get at some point, just over water or something so he would be safe when it expired.
Finding himself safely on the other side of the drawbridge, Sam passed through the large archway into the Fortress proper, coming into a courtyard he found five Golems and two harpies. The harpies came flying towards them but were easily cut down as soon as they entered Sam’s Area, the Golems threw a few rocks before they started moving towards them but between the incoming attacks from Sam and the triggering of Static Shock, they all fell before they could do anything worthy.
“Is it just me or... are the Dungeons getting almost boring...” Sam felt that though this Dungeon had a neat premise and danger, it was just a bit too easy. The XP came running in, the rocks were useless and... he fell into the trap again of expecting everyone to have it similar to him.
Janik turned towards him but was stopped before he could reply by Sam. “Yeah... yeah... I spoke before I thought about it. Resources, damage output, me being weird, I get it.”
Not looking back at him, Sam stepped further into the courtyard, letting Dia do her thing with the cores before properly moving on.
But this did bring his thoughts back on things. He didn't want to dive head-first into danger just to make things interesting, that’s just what the Entities wanted him to do. If he wanted to survive this thing he needed to keep a cool head. Janik also mentioned that they were geared better than normal for this level. Assuming lower Defence ratings meant that the attacks from the mobs in here would hit harder, same with the first Dungeon on this Floor. Adding that they started having Defence ratings meant that lower damage outputs would start being a problem.
Taking Janik as an example, his output was over two weapons, totalling 460, which was above average in damage. He could one-shot a Golem, just barely, but that meant that he had to go close, perhaps get hit and if he didn’t have as good armour as he did... adding the Harpies and... this stacked up fast. Ranged attacks excelled but always had a cost, be that material as ammunition, both exertion and ammunition through throwing and mana in magic. He got it, he did. But a weird downside of his situation was that this was feeling somewhat... boring. Perhaps that was a side effect of the last Solo dungeon.
Even if he had thought about this again and again, and that Janik had commented on it more than once, there was still something in the back of his mind that made this odd. He had a goal in mind but to get there he needed to... find out how to get there. The only thing he knew was that he needed more power, and that meant more grinding. He knew that he could just go invisible and attack things that way, but this made the others into targets and it was easier to handle things knowing he was the focus, but perhaps they should make a tactic based on that if they were to grind this place.
Before that even became a topic of discussion, they needed to complete it once. Once Dia was done with the cores they moved onward, there was a door at the end of the courtyard.
“In there is the boss,” Janik started as he looked at his phone while walking, having only one sword in hand, the other sheathed at his hip. “The Forge Golem, a few normal Golems and a few Harpies. The numbers change from run to run but something like that.” Putting his phone back in his pocket he pulled his second sword again.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Sam was mentally prepared to do most, if not all of it this round as well, since that was somewhat the way of the group. This could sound tedious, but for several reasons; he kind of liked it. Not only did it keep him at his best, and let him improve himself, but it also let him keep his allies out of harm's way as much as possible. It was also amusing to stick it to the ‘balance’ that the Entities had set up with the Tower System. He knew what the System was for, and if he could do things at a higher level than he should be doing, and safely, it felt like a good start.
But for now, they had a boss to handle. Getting to the door and opening it they saw a small field in a tiny room behind it, it was something like the boss room in the first Dungeon on this level. Probably so ranged attackers and mages couldn’t just take shots through the door and attack it, which was a shame as it was exactly what he was planning to do.
“We go in, do our best and if needed, exit the Dungeon if it looks dangerous,” Janik explained.
“Before that I have a simple question,” Sam started. “If I go in alone and take care of this, will you still complete the Dungeon?”
“I... don’t think that’s a good id-” Janik didn’t sound like he liked that at all, but Sam interrupted him.
“I can go invisible and just attack while moving around, they don’t have the echolocation thing that the bats have, I might be entirely safe. And since my invisibility or attacks don’t use mana, it’s pretty safe.”
Janik sighed. “First of all. Yes, even if we stay out here, we’ll get completion, even for normal kills and everything. But, we also have no insight into what’s happening, there is no communication, so if you suddenly need help we won’t know.” His voice was already worried, not seeming interested in even trying.
“Ok, that’s fair. But I assume we’ll be grinding this thing if it goes well,” Sam smiled feeling like he had already found out the easiest tactic in this place. “Then I can do it alone the next round.”
“Hmm...” Janik replied with a thoughtful tone, using a few seconds in thought before replying. “I suppose that depends on just how easy things are... If so I say we all go in now, you try your tactic and if it turns out good we can talk about it.”
Sam smiled, this was good enough for him. He didn’t know the statistics on the Boss yet, but he didn’t imagine it would be too problematic. Also wondering what kind of damage he could do with one of the golfball-sized steel ball bearings he got at the hardware store when launched with Cluster Pulse. When he used Penetrating Launch earlier, it used an item to try to cause damage by penetrating defence. But, using Cluster Pulse seemed to become a physics attack rather than a System attack. If that wasn’t the case, then he couldn’t have killed the Golems with one rock.
This didn’t cause damage to the dummy... or rather it didn’t display any numerical damage value, but it lost an entire limb so it did something.
“Ok, let’s go in. I want to try to launch a steel ball at it, if that fails I’ll attack normally.” Sam was eager and excited, something Janik seemed to notice.
“Fine, but before we go, know that this Boss has some tactics. It has high defences and a lot of health, the guide said something like 100 defences and about a thousand health. That’s a hard target to damage... usually..” Janik had a judgmental look at Sam before continuing. “To work around this, it’s covered in lava so if you can get it over to the water inside the room it’ll solidify and supercool or something, after that, it’s much easier to damage. It still hits hard, though, and the room has lava streams and is... hot... ” He ended with a somewhat uncertain tone.
Understanding the numbers, 100 defence was considerable, and running around in a room like that was quite dangerous. All in all, it sounded like a pretty harsh boss to fight against, perhaps that was another reason this Dungeon wasn’t done that often.
Explaining the tactic to Dia, they entered as they had done in the other Dungeon many times before. Passing through the warm light before finding themselves elsewhere.
The room they landed in was unbearably hot, it was like stepping into the bold sun on a tropical island in the middle of the day. They were in a massive cave, with enough room and height for the creatures in there to attack and throw things. The floor had streams of lava flowing slowly back and forth, a few locations around the room had small streams of water freefalling out of rough holes in the ceiling into holes in the floor, the heat evaporated enough of it to make the air in there densely humid.
Around the room were four golems, two harpies took flight from their perches and a massive 2-man tall golem, made of the same stacked stone construction but with streaks of lava through its body, rose from some Golem-seated position.
Sam didn’t wait with his test and took out a steel ball bearing, aiming it at the Golem with all his 44 hands he took a few seconds before launching. The first two shots missed and slammed into the mountain wall behind it, it wasn’t until the third one landed properly in its chest. Though it seemed like it broke off a tiny chip of its rocky surface, it didn’t seem like it did much at all.
[ Forge Golem
Level: 40
STR: 15
DEX: 2
VIT: 20
SPT: 0
HP: 1000 / 1000
Defence: 100
Damage: Slam: 100, Throw: 100
Abilities: HP bonus, Str damage bonus, Elemental resistance. ]
[ Elemental Resistance: Takes half damage from all elemental damage.]
There was no damage done to it from the steel ball bearing, Sam briefly considered trying with Telekinetic Boost, it would increase the force tenfold but he also felt that a solid stone creature like that might not take enough damage. For now, he could try his other tactic.
“Spread out!” Janik shouted to them, which had Janik and Dia step away from Sam as the Forge Golem picked up a large stone from the ground.
As it aimed at them and reeled its arm back, Sam activated his Invisibility, dedicating 10 Energy to it so he’d go entirely invisible. As he moved to the side he saw hesitation in the Forge Golem’s throw before the large rock was launched.
The aiming point seemed to be where Sam stood before, meaning it was completely wasted. Sam started running towards the boss, taking detours towards the two Harpies, imagining they would be the most problematic targets for the others to handle as it was more than tall high enough in there for them to never have to enter the range of the others.
Everything in here started aiming for Dia and Janik, Dia had no problems dodging everything, and Janik seemed to be a bit more uncertain about things but that seemed to be a lighting issue. The room was illuminated by the lava flowing everywhere but it wasn’t enough to see as well as normal. And they did just come from outside and daylight. Dia was much more adept at that and handled it with little effort.
Janik still managed to avoid getting hit, sidestepping the incoming rocks before they landed. The focus on them made it even easier to take out the two Harpies, and one of the Golems, on the way to the boss. The harpies didn’t know it was coming, Sam called out his weapons into his Psyhands from his Item box, attacked, and then put them back. A swarm of weapons suddenly pop out from nowhere, exploding the poor creature before disappearing again, only for it all to happen again. All without a single glimpse of where the user was.
Though Sam did break stealth, or rather, shouted from wherever he was, every time he saw any of the other targets throw something, he quickly changed positions as it didn’t take long before that area became the next target of rocks. This increased the odds of his allies dodging and caused a little confusion with the Dungeon Monsters, a win/win in Sam’s book.
Sam soon found himself at the rough end of his Area’s reach, well within range to start attacking the Golem, he wondered what 100 Defence and a 50% Elemental Defence would stand up to his onslaught. Based on the math it shouldn’t be a huge issue. Smiling a little to himself in his invisibility, he manifested his swarm behind the Forge Golem.