Moriko sat back in preparation to view the next two floors worth of battles. While she would be watching with enough attention to pick apart any growing strategies or synergies, she was not expecting the fights to be terribly entertaining. Zushi was not a typical floor boss, as he had the extra power of also being a raid boss; and Ryohoho had been fighting with a power boost from the boss upgrade ability that Mordecai had manifested when the dungeon expanded to six floors. Unfortunately, it didn’t scale, so while that ability would make the next several bosses stronger than they otherwise would be against a smaller, weaker party, they wouldn’t improve more than that single step even against a party like the one they faced.
So to entertain herself she laid claim to one of Kazue’s tails, drawing the length of red fluff out across her lap and slowly petting it. And Moriko did find the kitsune’s muffled sound of surprise to be very entertaining, as well as how Kazue was doing her best to not squirm as Moriko’s fingers teased their way under the soft fur, alternating between gentle grooming and light scritches.
On the couch oblique to them, Akahana’s ear twitched, and she looked over at them with a frown. Moriko gave her a cheeky smile while raising an eyebrow, then directed her gaze to where a couple of Akahana’s tails lay across Ricardo’s lap. The older kitsune woman looked away without comment, and Moriko was pretty certain that she was blushing under that fur.
That was one of the things Moriko liked about Kazue’s hybrid form. The ears and tails were fun to play with, but she appreciated not having to cope with fur everywhere else. The best of both worlds.
While Moriko teased her wife, the challenges on the second floor were proceeding pretty much as expected. Traveling in a slightly loosened formation, they progressed slowly and steadily, taking out the creatures they could without wasting energy trying to chase them down. Takehiko spent one more potent spell on a short-range portal to the top of the cliff where he could cover the group with fox fire and minor magics as they made their way up the slow path. Most groups chose this path so as to not become separated, though there was a previous team of kitsune delvers that had been well-equipped for scrambling up the cliff.
Everyone on this team had been through this level before, and everyone knew that rushing was a bad idea. One of the early groups had made the mistake of trying to force a clear route through the stalactites and stalagmites for their heavily armored comrades. The resulting explosion from the first time they released and subsequently sparked a small gas cloud had taught them not to try that again, and word had spread. Injuries had been bad enough that the group's own healers could not cleanly repair the wounds, so Mordecai personally mended some scars when the group returned from delving as far as they could.
The muddy slope was a bit messy, and they spread out into two groups for the raised paths so that they could cover each other. Shizoku and Brongrim were the only ones not inconvenienced by the tunnel maze; everyone else had to crouch and move slowly. It shifted every time, so there was no way to memorize the route.
When the group was ready to face the boss battle, Hildegard and Crios made their entrances into the arena. The carbuncle pranced down the path from a ledge above and sat down serenely on top of her dias as the path receded. The gleam of her fur and the shine of her forehead gem easily kept attention until Crios erupted from his pool in an enthusiastic spray of water and noise. The giant crab quickly scuttled his way to Hildegard's dias, where she lightly lept upon his back, where she could best use her magic to keep him protected and healed as he fought.
Mordecai kept the fight against Crios and Hildegard a little more interesting by starting with two waves of fourteen flying dire rabbats each, then a third wave when the two bosses were looking worn. But even with Takehiko using his mid-tier spells in moderation, he had enough punch behind them to tip the party’s power up significantly. Moriko was pretty certain he was holding back until just before the numbers might have overwhelmed someone.
With Takehiko acting as part of the covering action, Shizoku supported Nainvil and Brongrim instead. She used her spells to counter Hildegard’s shielding magic that warded Crios, and she kept the two warriors mobile while throwing a few pre-made alchemical bombs at the crab boss as well. She was trying to be conservative with the items they'd collected after the previous boss battle.
Crios did get in a solid cut on Brongrim’s left arm, nearly causing the dwarf to drop his short blade. With a curse, he fell back to Shizoku, who deftly cut the straps holding the damaged plate in place. Nainvil shifted between the boss and the pair and focused on defense while Shizoku patched Brongrim up.
With practiced motions she mixed two vials of powder, then poured the result into the gash before pressing down with a piece of gauze and tightly wrapping it in place. Brongrim ground his teeth during the fast, rough treatment, but the wound was no longer bleeding, and the quick bandaging was going to let him use his arm without spraying blood everywhere. As the dwarf headed back into battle, Moriko glance over at Mordecai. “Wouldn’t a healing potion have worked better? I’m pretty certain that they have them.”
Her husband nodded. “Technically, yes. But they can’t easily brew up a potion down here, so they have a very finite supply. That mixture was something to clot the blood and stimulate faster growth. There are even some species of moss whose spores can be used to treat wounds that way. Shizoku is a field alchemist, as many witches are, and she knows how to get what she needs out of the surrounding environment. That’s why they were collecting horns when they could, as well as plucking some leaves and flowers from the hedge maze. The components need preparation, but she can be well stocked again after a night of camping. So if it’s not critical, it’s better for her to use that which she can replace.”
Moriko hadn't experienced needing to budget healing potions before. While working for the church, Moriko's missions had always been fully provisioned and usually had a priest or two along as well, so it hadn’t been something she’d needed to worry about. She wasn’t sure how to take advantage of the difference, but it was something to keep in mind.
Takehiko was the problem. This fight was keeping him occupied by pure numbers, but those were being whittled down fast and Crios wasn’t going to last much longer despite Hildegard’s healing. Never mind, he was down, and without the support, Hildegard didn’t last much longer. Moriko winced at the sight and turned away before the party gathered its prizes, which in this case were going to be harvested from the bodies.
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She knew that the inhabitants were fine with this outcome, and Mordecai was unbothered as well, but she and Kazue were never terribly comfortable with the treatment of the bodies. True, the souls were kept safe inside the dungeon and they’d be back in the morning, but it was still creepy. Maybe it was because of how well she knew them.
With the second floor cleared, five of the bunkin took off to organize their sections of the third floor, while the rest remained to make further notes. Moriko was making her own mental ones as she idly twirled fur around her finger. Takehiko made his party badly imbalanced, which made it harder to arrange a fair fight. If she just wanted to win with a dirty fight, she’d just use a variant of the tactics she’d just witnessed: Mob the party with even stronger creatures, then start working her way through them starting from the bottom up to leave the mage without support, and then take him out.
The other obvious option was to challenge Takehiko to a one-on-one and arrange for everyone else to be given appropriate opponents. The only issue was that she wasn’t sure that she was quite up to the task, based on her spars with Mordecai; if Mordecai restricted himself to the sort of fighting style that she used, they were fighting on even footing. Mostly. He still had his ridiculous body to back up his skill. If Mordecai’s evaluation of himself as equivalent to a four-tail by depth of power, then that put her there too. Takehiko was a five-tail, and this was his second dive into the dungeon. She didn’t know how close he was to being a six-tail.
Moriko’s musings were interrupted by a mental whimper from Kazue. “P-please, Moriko, that’s too much.” Moriko glanced at her wife’s profile, amused to notice how valiantly the kitsune was struggling to keep her face passive as she supposedly watched the illusion in front of them. There was a faint sheen to her skin as well.
She showed mercy, of a sort. Smoothing out the tail’s fur, Moriko replied. “I’ll stop, for now. But I think later tonight you need all your tails groomed, thoroughly. Why, it might just take hours. But I am certain that Mordecai would be happy to help.”
“Evil. Cruel. Wicked. Both of you are just awful creatures.” Kazue complained at them, yet she didn’t ask them not to either.
Moriko bit her lower lip to avoid grinning too broadly. She was only willing to embarrass Kazue so much in front of her parents. Besides, the party had started on the third floor. The bunkin here were stronger than their dire rabbit cousins, and much more skilled and organized as well. Individually, the members of the party were still the more powerful, but Mordecai set each of the five terrain/combat challenges to face against them with ten bunkin, in two groups of five. Now they had to work more for their victory.
Mordecai set the challenge just right, making them expend spells and some minor potions, as well as reagents from Shizoku’s stash. It would have taken terrible luck for any of the fights to be deadly, especially with the fight being monitored so closely, but only so long as the party worked for it and didn’t take the fights for granted.
Their rewards were more significant now, from a monetary standpoint, as they looted weapons that were often cold iron or silvered. There were also some other minor magic items and consumables to be found. Technically, it would have been okay for them to treat the bunkin bodies like they had previous bodies, but there had been far too many interactions with the affable small humanoids for anyone in the party to feel comfortable doing that, so they kept to simple looting.
Five battles, each in different terrain; and the terrain variety had increased once the dungeon had traded for samples from the caravan. Sending in fifty combat-ready bunkin had run the dungeon thin on support. But the bosses, Betty and Umbrowl, were still supplied an additional team of nine more, this time all archers.
The nine were assigned alcoves at various heights, well spread out throughout the boss room. Three were assigned Takehiko as their target, and the rest were each given a different member of the party. As for Bouncing Betty, the human-sized bunkin with enhanced boxing skills, she was targeting the five-tail with her long-distance sonic punches while keeping her distance from Brongrim and Nainvil.
Takehiko tried to return the favor, but every time he focused to cast a spell at Betty, he found himself under assault from the wily flying owl-cat flitting out of the numerous shadows cast by stalagtites and stalagmites. And unlike the party, Umbrowl knew which ones were part of a trap, which let him lure or push toward more dangerous areas. Umbrowl’s instructions were clear: He was to only attack Takehiko when the kitsune was attacking Betty, the rest of the time he was to remain hidden.
All three of the guards switched to crossbows and started exchanging fire with the snipers, but finding cover and the right angle to fire from was complicated by the need to watch their footing.
Despite the difficulties, the party was winning as the snipers went down one by one, but the key point where it was clear they had the battle in the bag was when Shizoku threw a vial at Takehiko’s back just as Umbrowl tried to ambush him again. The vial shattered, and the chemicals released a brilliant but harmless flash of light that briefly stunned the flying shadow cat. The two kitsune assaulted the smaller boss with foxfire while one of the guards dropped his bow and grabbed his shield to provide cover from Betty’s sonic-powered punches.
Once the owl-cat was out of the picture, Takehiko could focus on Betty, and he took full advantage of his knowledge that there was a place to rest up ahead. Mordecai recalled her after the first blast of lightning nearly took her out, and the remaining two snipers both retreated with their injuries. Victory belonged to the delving party, who fully expected to be rested and healed by morning, as they would be able to make use of the rest of the day and night to safely use their remaining magic on healing injuries without worry about more battles, and have the time to repair their equipment, restore their supplies, and rest.
“Right,” Moriko muttered to herself, “I need to remember that they are going to go all out when they reach me. Last fight of the dungeon, no reason to hold back for the future.” Kazue and Mordecai let out sighs and leaned back, looking worn out, and Moriko examined them with concern. “Is something wrong?”
Kazue waved her hand at Mordecai, who responded on their behalf. “Pushing them that hard without going overboard was hard. We were constantly running simulations to make sure we didn’t send too many. I want them to at least clear the fifth, and maybe clear the sixth, but I sure as hell don’t want to give it to them either. I had to borrow some of our bunkin from the fourth floor to give us enough. But if I can make them work for their fourth and fifth floor clears, then it will feel fair to let them take Kazue’s path in the future and switch back to the battle path at the start of the sixth, or even just get them down to the sixth directly if they want. That will make running more parties easier in the future.”
“Maybe clear the sixth? Are you saying you would let them beat up your dear, sweet, delicate wife?” That question earned her a more than dubious look from Mordecai.
“As if you would have it any other way.” He retorted. “Your thoughts have been leaking, you are considering devious things. And no, you can’t borrow Enki either. I like him where he’s at, and I don’t think an earth elemental would be great for a water fight, anyway.”
“Boo.” Moriko pouted playfully, then shook her head. “Well, I’m going to go practice a few ideas; I’ll see you two later.” She gave them both kisses, then bowed briefly to her in-laws, who had also risen to leave. The bunkins had started clearing out as soon as the last battle had finished.
She had a lot to figure out if she wanted to give them a challenging fight. Hmm. Maybe she should arrange for something technically a little too strong for them, and then back off when they cleared the proper challenge level. Moriko trusted her husband and wife, but she did not find the idea of dying, even temporarily, very appealing.