Katherine Pov
It didn't take long for the group to find what they thought, was an appropriate amount of turtle shell shields to move on the next part of their plan. They had thirty hard earned shields. It hadn't been easy to gather so many. They would do their best to lure a solitary dolphin over to a designated area of the mangrove forest, where they would cut off it's path of retreat.
It wasn't fool proof but it was the best idea they had come up with. After some discussion they all agreed that Leto would be the one to lure the dolphin over. He had the ring of defense and they were curious to see if it could stand up to a mental attack.
They had already spent two days gathering turtle shields and discussing their plan so they wasted no time and marched towards the deeper end of the floor. By now all of them had a pair of waterproof boots from the swimming rabbits.
It made their lives much better now that they didn't have to live with wet feet all the time. But they couldn't help them after they waded into the water up to their knees. The whole group became silent as they all held back the complaints about their wet feet.
They were all more than ready to take out some aggression out on some monsters. Thankfully it didn't take long before they had everything situated and Leto left to lure over a dolphin. It didn't take long for him to return with a dolphin following beside him.
Thankfully it was alone. Once it had gone deep enough in the mangrove trees, Leto pulled a turtle shield out of his storage ring and thrust it deep in to the ground behind the dolphin. It startled the dolphin but it still didn't attack.
She took advantage of the opportunity to stab a shield as deep in to the ground as she could. It wasn't quite as solid as Leto's but she figured it would hold long enough to take care of the dolphin. The dolphin was now starting to panic and began to thrash around the limited space it had.
They took that as a signal to descend on it from all sides. The two older boys, Harmin and Silas jumped out of the trees above and stabbed it with their daggers while Hara used her wand to throw fireball and rock bullet spells at it.
Garm and Heros were told to stay in the tree in case someone was injured and needed to be healed. Heros hadn't been happy when she had told him to stay in the tree with Garm but she needed some insurance just in case their plan went south.
His sword was not helpful in such close combat with his own comrades. Plus he could protect Garm if a bobcat attacked while they were all distracted. She took advantage of the moment to bash the dolphin in the head as hard as she could a couple of times.
The dolphin thrashed and released a series of whistles, squeaks and squeals but eventually succumbed to it's injuries and died. They were all proud that their plan had succeded and were about to start the operation over again.
Garm's shrill voice came from up in the tree and the smile fell from her face. It wasn't a good sign that his voice was so shrill but what he said made her tail fur stand on edge. The full pod of dolphins was heading this way.
Obviously the dying dolphin had sent out a distress signal. Their faces paled and they began to wonder if they should flee but it was already too late. They were already slamming their bodies in to the shield Leto had stabbed in to the sand.
He reacted quickly and pulled out another shield and stabbed it behind the almost non existant shield but it wasn't of much help. The shields were barely at the level that they could be called shields.
Everyone lurched forward in an effort to kill some of the dolphins but she stopped them and handed them all a shield before allowing them to get any closer to the dolphins. She knew they weren't much but at least they woudn't die immidiately.
Stolen novel; please report.
At first it seemed like they had the upper hand but it wasn't long before Harmin went limp and began to fall foward towards the pod of dolphins. Thankfully Leto's reaction speed was pretty quick and he managed to pull him back towards to the back line for Garm to heal.
After that it didn't take long for the rest of them to be hit one by one. The only ones who managed to go on without being hit by the mental attack were Leto and her. She was so thankful for her scepter.
She had indeed been hit by a mental attack. And she was pretty sure she had been knocked out for a second before a frigid feeling came over her mind snapping her out of it and waking her up. It had been quite painful actually but it had done the trick.
She kept pulling shield after shield out of her storage ring until she she finally grabbed the last one and began to frown. There were still at least fifteen dolphin left. They had only managed to kill a handful. She was super worried that they would be overwhelmed and die here.
The final shield broke just as a mental attack took effect on Silas. She was trying to lurch forward to save him when a heavy pressure descended on the floor. Everyone froze, even the dolphins who had been on the verge of attacking Silas.
The pressure felt a tad murderous but at the same time a little motherly. It was freaky. The dolphins didn't dare take another glance at them and dissappeared in a hurry. The pressure also left and everyone quickly took in large gulps of air.
They didn't even realize they were holding their breath. That was insanely intense. They quickly made sure they were all alright before gathering their spoils of war. They walked back to the cabin by the egde of the mangrove silently.
They were all thinking about different things. She was wondering what could have possibly made the dungeon so angry that it was murderous. She began to wonder if new people had been invited to the dungeon.
She had a gut feeling that was the case. She would do an experiment later to find out if she was right. She told the boys they could take the tin foil hats dropped by the dolphins. She had little to no interest in them. They look flimsy and ugly.
Her scepter was better than it anyway. There were only two but Leto let Harmin and Silas have them. The ring was defense enough for him and he wanted to keep his friends safe. They quickly returned to the cabin so they could eat.
After feeding everyone with some sweet and sour pineapple dolphin soup, she made sure the girls were all good before going out. She knew Hara was an adult according to most societies, but she would never stop being that little girl who came into the dungeon, who was scared to descend the stairs to the second floor.
Rose and Lyra were also on the verge of activating their systems. It would't be long before they would join them on their daily hunts. She sighed and continued to make her way towards to island not far from their cabin. Thankfully the water wasn't too cold or deep.
It only took her a couple of minutes to reach the island. She shook out her wet hair and tail as much as she could before she approached the table with all the figurines on it. She pulled up her inventory list and began to count the figurines from the third floor.
She began to frown once she realized that the number of figurines on the tables didn't match her own. There were still so many monsters that she didn't have figurines for? She had a bad feeling that she would never be able to collect them all.
She saw the huge sea cows had two figurines and she paled to a whole new degree. There were two different types of those behemoths? She let her legs give out from beneath her and began to pout.
They had a hard enough time fighting the two faced dolphins but now they would have to fight two different sea cows if she wanted their figurines. If it had been before today she would have had no issue asking the group to help her take them down.
But today had been a reality check. They were not strong enough to handle those things. She didn't want to endanger the kids over her selfish desires. From the looks of it she still had a bunch of fish monsters to catch too.
That was a lottery to her. You might catch something, or you might not. It might be huge and feed you for two days or it could be five inches. She didn't like that type of gambling. She pulled herself out of her tangents and began to hum an old tune that had surfaced from the depths of her memories.
It was a sweet lulaby her mother used to sing to her. She had trouble remembering the words but the tune flowed naturally, like it was embedded in her soul. It went on for a few minutes before she stopped and leaned her back on the table.
She knew it didn't make much sense but she felt very much at peace in this dungeon. She had grown up being told that dungeons were terrifying places and while this dungeon had the capability to be terrifying, it radiated peaceful feelings to her.