Kazue felt much more centered now, though still a touch overstimulated. She had certainly enjoyed last night’s attention, but it had left her mood lifted so high she’d felt like she was floating for a while. But it was best not to dwell upon what happened too much, she didn’t want to get distracted from the viewing.
The party had figured out their methodology pretty well here. Shizoku and Takehiko were working to both uncover the biting words constructs by using minor magics to push around any unattended books with wind or tug them off a shelf. This sort of magic use was sustainable, was decent at revealing the false books before they could ambush the party, and in doing so made it safe it inspect the books to find any of value.
Of course, it also damaged any books that weren’t in decent condition, so they were risking losing out on loot, but it was certainly safer this way. The method was acceptable, as it significantly slowed down the party while they used a sustainable amount of magic, providing energy for the dungeon to grow in the long term. And even the bunbrarian death screams only made the thirteen-year-old Shizoku flinch a little.
A similar methodology was used for every growth of root and vine. Whether it was with an arrow or a bolt of ice energy, every potentially dangerous section of plant was tested, and anything that twitched was assaulted from a safe distance.
Of course, that made noise and drew the bunbrarians along with more bookwyrms, sometimes for situations where there was no danger otherwise. So it did have its drawbacks. Kazue was amused to notice that Mordecai had completely filled their bunbrarian templates today to deal with this group. Normally he waited to fill in all the slots since the buff couldn’t be removed until the next dawn, and that meant that the bunkin had their minds and bodies altered for that duration.
She was very glad that Mordecai had known this trick, investing some of their capacity into an upgrade that could be put on. For some changes, it was fine for things to be one-way, especially if it enhanced a path of learning that the bunkin was already on, but for something like this, the kitsune was very glad that no one was stuck in this mode all the time. It wasn’t as efficient in some ways, but even on the combat path, Kazue wanted some community.
Given the methodological progression and the time-consuming nature of mapping out a chaotic maze, this floor took quite a while, so Kazue and her family and the bunkin and rabkin who were watching, all took the time to go about other business as well. That was sort of the nature of having a more organized, professional group working their way through. It just was not as entertaining as someone rushing their way in with only half a clue. But it also took a lot less monitoring, as they were not as likely to do something that could get themselves killed.
“I see you went for double-boss arena again.” Kazue noted upon seeing the branches growing between bookshelves.
“Yes,” Mordecai responded, “I think I’m going to let the fight go by its default rules. Bookwyrms and biting words will show up at their normal rate. It does mean Takehiko will be freer to sling his spells, and he’s not burned through a sizeable chunk, like they had when the kitsune were here last time, but he’s also not as powerful as your mother is.”
The fight went much differently than when Akahana had simply tried to bulldoze her way through. Knowledge and preparation are powerful tools, and it was clear that they’d kept their most powerful spells in reserve, and Takehiko started off by effectively eliminating almost a third of the boss room from play as soon as Biblios made his appearance. Shizoku used a spell prepared to provide them with a brief wall of force to protect them from the initial onslaught while Takehiko conjured seething clouds that covered the far end of the arena’s ceiling. Those clouds promptly began to rain a dark liquid that sizzled where ever it hit.
“Looks like he’s starting from the top of his spells and working his way down as he runs low,” Akahana commented. “A strong start in some ways, he’s making it easier for everyone to find their foes since no one is going to want to sit in a storm of acid, but that also means that he’s not going to be doing any damage with that spell. And that one has no safeties, it’ll burn the group as easily as the enemy.”
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Nainvil and Brongrim were playing defense for this fight, making sure that the construct dragon couldn’t close on the party without short-range fighters getting in the way. The three guards had their crossbows out and were ignoring Biblios in favor of keeping watch for Horace. Any time the orangutan attacked, whether with tome or ink, at least one of them could react in time to take a shot.
They didn’t always hit, the shots had to be taken fast and Horace was fairly adept at moving out of the way right after he attacked, but it was a strategy that made it harder for the librarian to simply assault them at will.
That left Takehiko and Shizoku to take the offensive on the dragon. The group kept their formation loose as they made their way forward, stepping a decent way shy of the center. That was when Takehiko cast his second storm spell, only this one took some of his concentration. A burst of clouds formed directly over the party, rumbling with the threat of thunder. While there were some clear areas around the edge of this cloud, between the two spells, about two-thirds of the arena was covered, and the remaining third was a thin strip. The five-tail kept his concentration on the spell, sending down bolts of lightning anytime Biblios attacked, and while he did so his fairy eidolon circled around the party, her aura and spells keeping the party protected and slowly healing any wounds they picked up.
Shizoku finished setting up their area of control by consecutively casting three spells that conjured up a curved wall of wind along the outside of the lighting clouds, needing all three to cover the total distance. The spell wasn’t harmful, but it was difficult to fly or attack through, and effectively forced the two bosses in closer to attack, making the job easier for Takehiko and the guards, with Brongrim able to get off the occasional shot with his pistol.
Biblios decided to not let this play out as a long-range fight and dove from cover directly above the party, forcing them to scatter as he landed, though the action did give an easy shot for Takehiko’s next bolt of lightning. The dragon spun to face the archers, using his tail in a sweep to force Nainvil and Brongrim to approach carefully, then blasted the guards with a storm of paper flechettes before charging directly at them.
Horace took this opportunity to assault the mages with tomes and vials of various noxious and slippery inks. Takehiko kept his focus on the dragon, while Shizoku did her best to cope with Horace. Her strongest spells were already gone, but she was far from helpless. Though her first attempt at a spell had no visible effect other than Horace baring his teeth in a snicker before disappearing.
Kazue frowned as she tried to figure out what spell the younger girl had cast. “Was she trying to hit Horace with Hysterical Laughter?”
Mordecai nodded. “Not a bad idea; if she could make him laugh uncontrollably for even a few moments, he’d likely have fallen and that would have opened him up to more attacks. But Horace has an exceptionally strong will, so it was a bad match-up.”
Kazue was pleased that her training with Mordecai had paid off; she would not have had a clue on how to identify that spell in her previous life.
Shizoku wasn’t done though, and spent two spells on conjuring fire sprites. They weren’t terribly strong elemental creatures, but they could breathe out cones of fire, so she set them to searing off all the greenery they could.
This made them Horace’s next targets, as the nodes of branches covered in leaves were both his cover and where he could teleport to. But while he was attacking them, the archers were still doing their best to target the orangutan. They had scattered, forcing Biblios to pick one to chase and letting the other two continue to attack.
The fire sprites didn’t last long, but the orange primate now had several more arrow wounds. In the meantime, Brongrim had managed to lodge several more lead bullets into Biblios, and Nainvil had gotten in a solid hit on one of the dragon’s back legs, laming it and forcing it to turn on them instead of the archers.
Shizoku switched her attention to Biblios as well, since he was in range of her alchemical mixtures. Fire bombs and paper dragons did not get along well, and the dragon already had several holes from Takehiko’s lightning assault.
The moment Biblios went down, Mordecai recalled Horace, there didn’t seem any point in prolonging the battle. The couple of bookwyrms that had time to form on the shelves had been battered by the winds and hadn’t had a chance to join the fray.
“Not surprising,” Mordecai said with a slight sigh. “Between numbers and Takehiko’s spells, even our boost wasn’t quite enough.” Then he grinned. “However, the gap is closing, and I didn’t have to add swarms of weaker creatures to make them work for the victory. Getting through the next level should prove much more interesting since they don’t really know what to expect.”
The party was pulling itself together and waiting out the last of the acid storm and the wind walls before collecting everything valuable they could and moving on to the next floor to set up camp. This part was a lot less exciting, and so the viewing party disbanded for the day while the adventuring party rested. And getting started early on resting was wise, given that they were going to need to take shifts, unlike the rest area for the library.