Eager to leave this muck-infested swamp biome, I strolled up to the miniboss spawn area and looked at the rest of the party that had gathered while I was reviewing my loot. Reev had returned and was fiddling with his interface while chatting with Fergie. Chad was pacing in irritation while Engli was stretched out on top of a dry jut of land. Rakshasa, Samir, Kiara, Scree, Night and an unconscious Shad were gathered together off to the side. It looked like people were just waiting for me.
This was quickly confirmed as Kiara cleared her throat and gathered our attention.
“We are ready to move onto the next floor. Shad’s companion has collected their loot and we just need to reseed the floor to access the gate to the second biome.”
Samir stepped forward and projected our party interface to the group. Deftly scrolling through the dungeon information, she selected the Reseed option next to Drugal’s Bane—Floor 1. A progress bar appeared, and a list of all of our gains populated our individual interfaces if we had not already initiated the process. The elf would wake up with a doozy of a notification list.
Our surroundings flickered across our senses as the bar filled—sound imploded and reset, scents disappeared rapidly and then resurfaced, the light faded and stabilized, the taste of sulfur receded and adjusted, and the feel of mugginess vanished before reappearing. Always most disconcerting for me, my emotions wavered from the area's confining oppressiveness to a neutral state and then back again. A rolling sound like distant thunder accompanied the creatures respawning, traps resetting and loot regenerating across the floor. Even the areas we hadn't ventured into would be reset for the next party.
Once the progress bar for the reseeding reached 75%, a cabin materialized on stilts to the left of our current position. The stilts raised the cabin floor slightly above the reeds and stagnant water, and I could make out a waterlogged staircase to the porch of the dilapidated building. On second glance, it might have been more of a shack than a cabin.
Samir hoisted Shad onto Engli's wide back, and we worked our way over to the exit.
“Let’s let Chad and Scree go to the front, then have Rakshasa and Fergi go through. Engli and Mavrich stick with me, and Reev and Night bring up the rear please.” Kiara’s adjustments to our formation would allow us to bottleneck the entrance to the second floor.
As a party, we were seasoned enough to prepare for a multitude of scenarios and flexible enough to shift with most of the surprises that adventurers faced in dungeon shifts. With Chaos potentially in play, I appreciated Kiara moving to a more conservative formation for us.
Chad and Scree had already stepped into the shack as I drew even with Engli and Kiara. I placed my hand on Shad to help stabilize them on the lion’s back as we stepped into the shack and were immediately drawn into the gate for the second floor.
As my foot touched down from my long stride, I felt the gentle prickle of ferns on my sole. The scent of moss and decaying wood met me before my vision acclimatized. Stepping aside to let the last of our party through, I scanned the area around me and noticed the moss I had smelled hanging from branches of tall pines, spruces and firs. Much to my delight, the sounds of woodland birds replaced the incessant humming of insects, amphibians and reptiles from the swamps. I knew the soundtrack of this biome would fill in more as we traveled deeper, so I closed my eyes to bathe in the temporary lull I was being granted.
“Stay focused Mavrich. We haven’t assessed yet. Now that noses should be back online, we’ll need you to help with the situational awareness more this floor than the last.” Kiara gave me a sympathetic look as she made her request.
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Grunting my agreement I narrowed my eyes and hoped for an anticlimatic beginning to the floor. “We’ll have a much better line of sight as well unless we get into thickets. I will also leverage my keen eyesight to our ends.”
She nodded at me in acknowledgment. “Find us a defensible position, Scree.”
The bat took off immediately and the rest of us stayed alert, quiet and huddled together.
After a quarter glass, Chad broke the silence and projected his interface map to the rest of us. “Ok, there should only be a few options for a miniboss because of the biome type. Drugal was more known for the extreme climates and this is too moderate to be any other than either Fell’s Grace or Pilout’s End.” The map appeared to be of an area a couple of hours wide, much smaller than the swamp we had just come from.
“So we should expect a ruined wizard’s tower or a fortified cave system? Either of those will be tricky for us to navigate Rakshasa and Engli through.” I looked at Samir and assessed her height with those two options in play. The thought of low-hanging archways, decrepit staircases, and vine-encrusted walls filled my imagination.
She hunched her shoulders playfully and winked at me, “Yes, I imagine there will be some ducking in my future. Do you have any lightfoot potions, Mavrich?”
“Yes, several. I've kept some on hand since that delve where we had to build a hoist to get Rakshasa and Engli to the exit.” I removed some from my vambrace and passed them to Chad, Kiara and Samir. I went ahead and slid two into my potions belt, and restocked the mana potion supply while I was at it.
"Let's hope for the cave then - Pilout's End. While the spiders will be a deadly nuisance, we should have more room to navigate." Reev chimed in with measured hope, knowing we probably wouldn't get that lucky.
Chad flicked the map closed and brought up the potential creature list for us to review. “It would benefit us to sneak attack or range attack most of these. There should be a lot of traps, poisons and status conditions we will need to look out for. We can expect swarm conditions in most of the spaces with larger creatures mixed in. I don’t see any magic immunities which is good. If we do find any we should update the index for the next delvers.” In addition to the spiders Reev had mentioned, there were wisps, fairies, ents, gnolls, and cursed deer to add to the list of potential foes. The list was actually quite long once you added in the normal woodland creatures that could populate in this biome.
“Seems like we should let Night lead, followed by Reev and Shad.” Kiara sighed and looked at the still unconscious elf. She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow while her eyes darted back and forth under her lids. “Scree found a rock outcropping that we can settle into while we scout the floor. So far, everything he has seen is at level 0. Chad, I’m sending you a pin for the party map. Please keep it updated on this floor.”
“Have there been any airborne threats, Kiara? I would like to stretch my wings and that location is not so distant that I would be out of the party's range for long.” I squirmed slightly while I waited for her to finish checking with her companion.
“Scree reported nothing to date, and if you go silently you should be fine, I agree. I will have Scree stay there so I can monitor you more easily.”
Her assessment was all I needed. I stepped away from the group and sprang into the air. There was just enough break in the tree cover for me not to get tangled up as I rose above the canopy and angled over to Scree and our next base location.
Shaking off the last vestiges of swamp from my scales and senses, I scanned my surroundings looking for threats to the party. What I observed aligned with what Scree had reported back and Chad had warned of. Level zero creatures were thick in the trees, on the ground and in the waterway I could see to the west of us. While easy to dispatch even by me in low numbers, their ability to bring superior numbers to bear could overwhelm the most cautious of groups.
Arriving in the air above the outcropping, I saw Scree silently circling a little lower than the air currents I was currently utilizing. I climbed to a higher altitude and a more expansive view. As I took in my surroundings, I pinged markers for everyone to fill in our maps. On my fifth circuit, I finally saw our target - a jagged, gray-stoned, and crumbling tower peeking through the foliage.
Seeing Scree descend and the rest of the party arrive, I sighed and folded my wings to plummet back down to join them.
It seemed we would be tackling Fell’s Grace.