The Beast
Chapter 4: Dungeon Hop
A Royal Road Fan Fiction… of sorts
By Halosty
When the three elves logged in, they saw a rabbit outside Moonbeam Dungeon. He was stretched out on his front, with his head on his paws, and his eyes closed.
“Looks like he’s been taking a nap too,” said Aeltas.
“Yep, a suuuper cute nap,” said Lailam. She didn’t bother mentioning that her level had gone up by two, again. She wasn’t exactly sure how Roger would be able to kill anything that could give experience anywhere near that amount.
The party entered the dungeon. Moonbeam Dungeon was a system of caves inhabited by brittle skeletons, who had no class associated with them. Further into the caves, the skeletons lost their “brittle” modifier, which just made them a bit more challenging. The monsters ranged from level 20-30 on average. At the end of the dungeon was a giant skeleton boss, Humeria, who was the real goal of the hunting party. It was a fairly popular dungeon for leveling, but few people tried to take on the boss, who was much harder than the rest of the dungeon.
The party progressed fairly quickly, with Aeltas and Cael’van making quick work of the brittle skeletons. Aeltas could easily dodge their hits, or sometimes block them if there was a larger group. Cael’van’s arrows weren’t as effective against skeletons, but he easily killed them anyway. They didn’t expect any trouble at this point in the dungeon. However, Cael’van soon noticed some peculiarities.
“Why is there loot just sitting around? Did people not want it? For that matter, where are all the players? I was sure that there would be more people here to compete with us.”
“Are you complaining about free loot and no competition?” asked Aeltas.
“No, but I am saying that something big might be around that is going to eat us.”
“Maybe Humeria started wandering around? That would explain all the loot and no players.”
“It would,” Lailam spoke up. “Roger says we should have turned left back at that tunnel.”
Cael’van broke out of his train of thought and looked around. “Ah yes, that should lead towards the chamber where Humeria is. Wait, why am I taking directions from a rabbit? Hmm, he is correct though.”
As they were getting deeper into the dungeon, regular skeletons started showing up. They weren’t even worrying in the groups of four they typically wandered in, but Aeltas had Lailam stay well back, just in case. As they were fighting one group, another showed up behind them.
Only Lailam noticed, because she was closest to the sound. When she turned to look, one of the group of skeletons was kneeling down, its kneecap apparently broken. There was also a brown and white blur running around. Lailam had been buffing Roger along with Cael’van and Aeltas, since she knew he would at least be of some help in an emergency situation. This was the first time she had seen him fight at his full capacity.
By the time the two elves in front turned around to see what Lailam was doing, there were only broken bones and loot left on the ground. Lailam was just staring with her jaw almost to the floor.
“How… how did you do that?” she asked. Roger came up and nuzzled her hand.
‘I’m stronger at night’ was the information she got from him.
“How much stronger?”
‘Many times.’ Roger would have told her four times, but a comprehension of numbers wasn’t really necessary for his AI. His understanding of increases in ability were more about the relative effects it had on him.
Cael’van and Aeltas were also sufficiently amazed, but they hadn’t really seen what was going on.
“Did he just… kill four of them? Real skeletons?”
“Yep.”
“And he’s… a rabbit, right?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, probably. Can’t you see him?”
“I was just checking in case my visual functions were broken.”
Roger snuggled up against Lailam’s ankle. ‘Should I show them?’
“Of course. Do you want the next group?”
Roger nodded.
The two elves were a bit hesitant to let him fight a group alone, but since he had apparently already done it, they figured he would be fine. If nothing else, they planned to jump in and save him. Lailam would be sad otherwise.
As it turned out, of course, there was no accident involved with his prior victory.
Roger started the battle by using his hop ability to quickly close in on an enemy, striking a weak location, such as a knee, with his rebounding hop, to bring him outside of the enemies radius of attack. He did this until his enemies were sufficiently disabled for him to attack points that did more damage. To those watching, it was much like a blur, with points at the end of the attacking and retreating lines that looked like rabbits, briefly.
“To be honest, now I’m not sure why I’m even here,” said Aeltas.
“Yeah, me neither,” remarked Cael’van.
Roger told Lailam his opinions on their usefulness. ‘The tough one is still better at distracting enemies, and reduces danger to Lailam. The skinny one is good for things that are far. He also has good senses, to detect things that will attack Lailam. Plus, the boss is too strong for me alone.’
She relayed his message, although much more diplomatically. She neglected to mention that he really only needed them to fight the Humeria. Who, incidentally, was in the next room.
The party rested up, and Lailam prepared the party with fresh buffs, including the ones that took more mana than was good for normal combats. This included Barkskin for Aeltas, which increased his defense, as well as a spell called Impact that made Cael’van’s arrows act more like bludgeoning weapons, which skeletons were weak to. Then, Aeltas walked into the room.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Out of the large pile of bones in the middle of the room rose a gigantic skeleton with glowing eyes. This skeleton was well over fifteen feet tall, and had four arms instead of the two a reasonable person would expect. The second pair faced backwards, and from a different angle, it was easy to tell that it was more like two skeletons fused together, back to back. Above his head floated the name Humeria in red.
Aeltas approached closer to draw his attention, while Cael’van and Lailam entered the room and spread out to the sides to avoid any skeletons that might appear in the hallway outside. Roger moved around behind Humeria, in an attempt to flank him.
Then, the battle started. Humeria swung its massive arms at Cael’van, who had the good sense not to try taking the attack head on. Its other arms threw bones from the pile at Roger, who was the most convenient target. It wasn’t particularly well optimized for attacking such a small target, so Roger only took damage from the splinters of bone as the ribcages and other bones shattered.
Cael’van immediately opened up with arrows towards the easiest part to hit, the ribcage. Lailam cast a beam of fire at the heads, to obscure their vision. Aeltas dodged and parried with his shield, trying to find a more stable position on the pile of bones. Roger moved in with some quick moves, but his speed was hindered among the bones. Then, he attacked at Humeria’s legs, but was not strong enough to provide significant enough amounts of damage to greatly hinder its movements.
Roger was glad that he had chased a group of adventurers into this room to see what the boss could do. They had done well enough in these beginning stages, but had been unprepared for the additional skeletons Roger now knew were coming when Humeria reached half health.
The battle continued on in about the same fashion until that point, although Lailam only used her fire powers sparingly, conserving mana for healing as necessary. When Humeria was half dead, the bones around him started trembling. Two more sets of arms rose up and attached to it awkwardly. These started throwing bones at the people standing at the edges of the room. Many more of the bones rose up and formed skeletons, who set out to attack the party.
At this point, Roger left Aeltas to fend for himself against Humeria. He went into action around the room attacking the extra skeletons. Cael’van’s damage output went down, because he had to dodge flying bones and keep away from the skeletons. Lailam had to move in to heal Aeltas, who could not avoid all of the damage. Skeletons kept continuously forming, almost as fast as they were destroyed, but Roger kept beating them back down.
Finally, the last regular skeleton was destroyed, at least for a few tens of seconds. Humeria was down to less than 5% health. Humeria focused all its fury on Aeltas. The flurry of powerful blows threatened to overwhelm him. Humeria had picked up a giant bone, somewhat like a club, with two of his hands, and was swinging it down in a overhead blow at Aeltas. Then, Roger ran through Humeria’s legs, from “behind”. Although Aeltas would never admit it later, Roger saved his life with his actions. He hopped up onto Aeltas’ face momentarily, then pushed off of him back towards Humeria. This action knocked Aeltas out of Humeria’s reach. It also propelled Roger straight into one of Humeria’s eyes.
With a great crash, bones scattered everywhere, echoing throughout the chamber. Along with bones were loot.
Level Up!
Roger did not care for the loot, he could not even pick it up with no where to put it, but he was happy at the level. Of course, he was also happy that Lailam would likely gain some things she wanted. He scanned the scattered armor, weapons, coins, and various trinkets. Then, his eyes fell upon something unexpected.
“Hey!” said Cael’van, who had the keenest senses. “Roger just ninja’d some of our loot!”
“Roger, give it back. We need to split it fairly,” admonished Lailam.
“Naw, I was just kidding. It was just a weird carrot anyway. He sure deserves at least that.”
You have eaten the Rainbow Carrot of Power!
Legend tells of a great rabbit emperor who gained his power by eating the carrots of power, which grant great powers to those who eat them. The legends are completely false, as any self respecting rabbit knows, but the power of the carrots are real!
+10 to all stats
+5% affinity with all elements
You have received a quest! You cannot refuse it because of your nature.
Carrots of Power
For some reason, magical power often gets absorbed into carrots by coincidence. Of these, there exist 5 major carrots of power, as well as 20 minor carrots of power. Collecting them all will compound their various effects!
0/5 Major carrots eaten
1/20 Minor carrots eaten
Special:Only one of each carrot exists at any time. If eaten, the power dwells in the consumer, and a new carrot of that type will not grow. If the consumer of a carrot of power is killed, the power can be extracted from his body if the killer had consumed any other carrots of power.
Roger was still dwelling on the exquisite taste of the carrot, but he was happy to know that more of them existed. He would definitely find them all.
End Chapter 4: Dungeon Hop