I was riding in a carriage with six others, my three regular colleges, Thorborg - who turned out to be a healer - and two girls who wore armor similar to Jeehan. Talking to us soon became awkward with LOD saying something cringy. The tension soon shattered since something came into view, casting everyone into a hypnotizing trance as they became glued to the windows.
Even though there was a carriage that was supposedly leading us, it was rendered pointless due to the monstrous, cylindrical tower that dominated the skyline. It's height insignificantly enhanced by the hill it was built on, getting even bigger as we closed in.
When we eventually got to the tower's base, we emptied the four carriages before becoming enthralled by the sheer scale of building in front of us. Relatable to thirty to forty stories tall, it dwarfed the previously tallest building I've seen in this world by doubling. Yet, even with its cloud-piercing height, it's width wasn't anything to be mocked either. From end to end, it looked like its circumference was one-hundred-and-sixty meters long, with a series of arches stretching its base out even further.
Minutes passed until the first few people broke from their trance, and with their assistance, everyone refocused soon after. A couple of people checked their statuses before the majority impatiently forced the start of the dungeon.
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Inside, we immediately split up into our pseudo-parties. Grouped as the following: Group One, (comprised of one tank and four samurai wielding katana's) Group Two and Group Three (containing five similar samurai in each) Group Four (comprised three assassins and two pirates), Group Five (containing four samurai archers and one mage) and Group Six (comprised of me, Alice, one samurai archer with an emphasis on healing and one mage.). We had a full party of thirty before this and all thirty health meters were displayed on the party menu, so I was confused with the others who put the thought in.
I was forced back to 'reality', as the front-most group met with the first major rush of enemies. Fifty or so mobs that contained a mixture of zombies and skeletons. The spacious room with flaking, but stable, walls soon became claustrophobic with the oncoming hoard filling the entire width of the hall.
Our pseudo-party was elected as the most central, so the mage in our group became the so-called 'strategist'. And following her role, she started barking her battle plan towards the other groups, "A medium wave of undead to the front with a melee focused. With groups, one and two already engaged. No obvious flanks of mobs on any other side. So commit to plan A until told otherwise."
Attempting to make the most of the space, Group Three covered a gap that gradually opened up between Group One and Two's position as the others moved into place.
The original groaning of the zombies and creaking of bones were soon coated by the clanging of blades, the mumbles between the mini-parties and countless footsteps.
Exchanges between the tanks and the ever growing number of mobs to each of them started off well for the tanks. Efficiently attack and countering the handful of attacks thrown at them to do way more damage to their opponents than with them. Each tank enough space to between them to actually dodge if they needed to. And it looked slightly better when we came to support them, dealing with large groups in the nearby with magic and arrows and successfully delayed their push.
A wall of my tentacles aimed at some of the taller undead actually did a good job of buying time, and the mobs who were cut off almost died off completely. A massive fire also engulfed the rear of their hoard, not managing to really kill, but spreading continuously to reached up to half of the mobs.
But the tables quickly turned when my wall was inevitable destroyed, since the rate of the mob's charge increased past the rate of projectiles, meaning the tanking members rapidly lost their maneuvering room. Thankfully their armor was strong enough to make their individual attacks almost meaningless.
Group Four dashed over to the most intense areas to give some support, dealing with some of the mobs and weakening a lot of others. Their efforts soon proved fruitless, as the tanks began to be forced driven back.
In addition, the spamming of our ranged attacks had almost stopped completely, as most people's AP was almost diminished, and I resorted to healing and only binding those around the front lines. Even then the pressure from the hoard was so intense that most of my binds dissolved in seconds, forcing me to stop healing.
Our side was gradually losing the endurance match, new orders came in from the nearby mage, "Groups five and Six change to melee!"
We did so, merging the back line with the front line to save on AP and maintain damage output. Though my AP was almost full again, I still obliged for the sake of doing damage.
The transition succeeded, for the most part, killing the mobs immediately attacking the tanks faster than having no supporting attacks. None of the tanks had reached orange health yet, and a bit of space opened up for them to move in. The enemies left were all previously wounded from at least the fire, so they lasted for even less time.
Five minutes later, the reinforcements were finally stopping. Most people who needed it had recovered a decent amount of AP and signs of being sluggish were only now making themselves apparent between people in the back.
Last full line of mobs facing the front line, the next death buckled their formation and we simply pushed into them and surrounded the remaining individuals. They didn't last long and we soon regrouped.
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Although I leveled up twice during the fight, and others probably did the same, we only waited for some necessary heals then walked down the rest of the fifty-meter room to the sole connecting room.
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A brighter room with similar width but shallower to the first was through the door. Another difference to the first room was that there weren't any mobs waiting for us. Instead, three other doors connected to the room.
Halted as some of us pushed for a random choice, one of the samurai girls mumbled something then pointed in a direction which we all followed.
Discussing it with the mage in our group, it seemed that there was a cartography skill that people used in dungeons to find the exit quickly. It seemed sort of pointless since the same subclass only had passives that affected how effective food was and how much stamina specific actions would do, but Preacher is a similar level of pointless so I'm not one to judge.
We went through the left door and followed it around. We followed a path curling around the room to the middle until we reached the staircase.
There was a small room in the corner of the third room which threw us a bit off guard. The door was wide opened and the small chest inside was opened too but had it's item still in there.
Speculation broke the focused silence of the group, but nothing solid was really found. This situation had re-sparked my interest with our missing member, who definitely seemed like they did this. I checked the names of each member on the group to the party list and narrowed down the missing member to someone called 'Ox'.
Curious, and bored of walking, I said 'Eh' as I focused on their name in the list. To my genuine surprise, this worked, giving me the following pop-up.
Name Ox Class Ghost Level 22 Gender Female HP 1000/1000 Skills (You cannot see the skills of intelegent races at your level.) Do you wish to view further details?
Yes or No.
Both the strategist mage -whose name I didn't know - and Alice gave me a wondering glare, which turned into a wide-eyed confused look when I said 'Yes' in reply to the prompt.
Stats Level 22 AP 4900/4900 Defense 27 Damage 27 HP 270/270 Speed 200 Stamina 47 Spare 5
"Hm... interesting. So Ox is a ghost, rushing ahead to loot stuff?" I murmured slightly louder, which loud enough for the six people nearest to me apparently to overhear.
"Who's 'Ox'? Alice wisely asked.
I was a bit surprised that she heard me but answered after I escaped my daze, "Ox is the missing party member. I just checked her stats, and with two-hundred speed, I guess they, well she, just ran through the mobs or something. If her class gives her actual invulnerability, in which case it would just be easier for her to skip rooms."
"So this 'Ox' somehow replaced Megan and is now just looting stuff. It was kind of this ghost to at least saved us the contents of the chest they didn't want," the mage commented.
"Megan?" Alice stopped and fiddled with an invisible console.
Doing the same with eyes continually scrolling up and down, the mage answered, "Yeah, Megan Hestlie. It's surprising that she got replaced since she's one of the Samurai_Girls, but I guess she got paid off or... Yep, she definitely isn't on this list."
This is where the conversation ended, however, an awkward silence replacing it until we reached the wide staircase that cut to the center room. A room identical to the first appeared at the top.
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Weirdly, there were already enemies there, but they were surrounding something and paying us no mind. We walked up to them with curious looks across our face.
Though, we backed off in silence as the ghost finally attack. Exploding a ten-by-ten area around her, she sent most of the skeletons surrounding her flying past the edge of the mob circle with a single attack. I looked at the menu, and her health wasn't going down at all, and by the time they got back into close range she just knocked them off again.
Eventually, the mobs noticed us, but the ten that actually charged at us got decimated by their attacks. The rest worthlessly mobbed the invisible person to die as they did, who didn't seem to notice us at all. But I wasn't in the mood to just let this person move on.
I walked into the fray and used 'bind' as I got within the correct range. The pattern of explosions stopped, so I gathered that I had successfully bound her. Watching her health go down as a result, I stopped just before I would've killed her. The rest of the party used this as a sign to interfere, and room was cleared soon after.
Clearly annoyed at my actions, a female voice soon yelled at me, "Oi, who did that?! And who the hell do they think they are?! That could've killed me!"
I became the center of attention, so calmly replied, "That was me and you deserve it. You rushed ahead of us without bothering to communicate, you would've taken loot that's worthwhile to you, and stole tons of EXP for yourself. Even though you shouldn't really be here."
There was a moment of silence before she begrudgingly accepted it, "Well, I did ask and compensated the member I replaced."
"And who else? You could've at least mentioned it to the rest of the party," one of the numerous female samurais asked. The others seemed to be on my side regardless of my independent action.
There was no response. A while later he ghost's voice finally came back but changed the topic without answering the clearly bad move, "Who are you in the healer's robes?"
"I'm DokiDoki17, a succubus," I answered.
"I'm Ox. That's the first time in a while I've been hit, so, how the hell did you do so? And with a bind no less..." the same voice asked.
"AoE binding attack," I swiftly replied.
Ox paused before asking, "... What's your speed?"
"Eighty-eight. I doubt that speed really affects binding attacks," I explained.
I still couldn't see her, but I gathered she was really baffled by this due to her next comment, "Huh? But mine's two hundred... How the hell does that work?"
I tried to explain my 'theory' about why it worked whilst walking to the next room, doubting she would understand it, "I assume that since you didn't get out of the range of tentacles, that they sort of enclosed you by rising up where you were not. Since you have a physical shape, the tentacles would go where you aren't then start squeezing the spaces, including where you were, and caused you damage. Though I haven't attacked myself with the attack, so I don't know for certain."
Shocking me for the second time again, she replied, "Oh, that makes sense. That's quite a stupid attack then..."
Ox continued to hang around us, occasionally asking questions or just talking with some of the people from the party about what happened. We got to the third floor without finding anything except for empty rooms.