Soren rolled out of bed and hopped on one foot as he struggled to put his pants on. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he didn't wake Skadi and Tempest in the early morning. He sighed in relief when two large mounds and two modest mounds rose and fell with their breathing. Soren grabbed the rest of his equipment and made his way downstairs, it was their first night in the fortress since its completion and he was pleased with its design. He went to the kitchen to pack supplies into his dimensional storage for their adventure and by the time he had finished Skadi, with her hair in disarray because she hadn't put it into her braid yet, wobbled down stairs. You could tell she wasn't fully awake yet, meanwhile Tempest who was right behind her was ready to go fully awake and alert.
Placing a hand to her stomach she looked at Soren hopefully, "We are eating first right," Tempest asked.
At the mention of food Skadi perked up as well and quickly snapped her head in his direction. With both women burning holes into him with their eyes he relented, "Of course I never would cheat you ladies out of a meal." He smiled.
The three of them ate with gusto, a hearty meal of sausage and potatoes, they left the fortress mid morning heading towards the Harpy dungeon.
As they walked through the forest Soren grimaced uncomfortably, "Skadi, we have known each other for quite a while now, why I am I just how hearing about the lich?"
Tempest glanced over, Skadi was smiling pleasantly head held high, "It's simple really, when the lich came and ravaged through my village I was still a dwarf. I hadn't even gone through my first evolution and to be quite honest with myself, I never thought I would ever be strong enough to get my revenge. I firmly believed that till I met you."
Soren smiled his nervousness gone, "Well a promise is a promise, although we are probably not strong enough right this second to take something like a lich on we can contend with it. It is an S class threat. We have to figure out how to kill it since it's technically already dead."
Soren seemed more excited then a moment ago as he thought, 'We need to do some research, we need a library that would specialize in magic and magical creatures...looks like I'll be seeing my brother sooner than I anticipated. We should be able to find what we need at the magic academy.'
It took roughly three days for them to trek the distance to the dungeon on foot. They walked the whole way in hopes that they could train on their way but nothing happened at all.
On the morning of the fourth day just after the sun broke the tree line the entrance to the dungeon came into view. They had to squeeze into a thicket of strong and sharp thorny vines in order to see the dungeon. It would've been easily missed if they hadn't seen the map of its general location. It was a single story concrete building overgrown with vines a large stone harpy sitting on the roof with its wings folded in front of it.
"My senses aren't going off, I think it would be safe to assume that it's a regular statue," Soren announced. Skadi picked up a large rock and launched it toward the harpy statue. Rock exploded in every direction as the statue and the rock she threw collided, a big chunk of stone missing from part of the harpy's wing.
Tempest laughed, "Well now it's certain," and lead the way through the entrance to the dungeon. When they all made it through the landscape had completely changed. It was a vast landscape of a canyon, red rock towered over them plateaus off in the distance, a white rapid river running next to them, a huge expanse of open sky and a black void for the door they entered through behind them. They marveled at the stark contrast between where they were and what they were seeing.
While they admiring the scenery a huge black torpedo shaped human leapt out of the water and shot a pressurized stream of water out at the party, they reacted quickly enough dodging out of the way. Soren was able to quickly identify the attacker, but none of them were able to react quickly enough to counter attack.
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Soren relayed the information that was revealed to him to the others and Tempest antagonized the others as her claws began to elongate, "This is going to be fun!"
This was a single floor dungeon and the objective is to find the boss in the vast area and only after the boss is defeated is one allowed to exit the dungeon. It's one of the reasons the dungeon is so difficult, you either win or die. The other reason is that the harpies are all fairly high level and the evolved harpies are annoying to deal with. Soren, Skadi, and Tempest killed every mob they came across and in no way was it a small number. The dungeon kept track of the amount of enemies you killed and the higher your kill count, the greater the reward. The dungeon did this to prevent someone from avoiding fights only to fight the boss.
Skadi was capable of flying so she was able to take down far more aeroharpies than everyone else. Aeroharpies were an evolved harpy that had increase strength and wind magic they were the hardest to lock down. The geo harpies were another evolved form of the harpy. They gave up their flight for the most powerful legs of the harpy types. They used devastating kicking techniques and earth magic. There efforts in killing the harpies rewarded them greatly.
Soren did not need long to think it over, he selected it almost immediately.
Soren was not the only one who improved his skills, the girls also had enough enemies that they were able to raise the majority of each of their skills by at least one level. That is precisely what they wanted to accomplish coming to a dungeon, leveling up and improving upon what they already had. They would need everything to subjugate the lich, its undead horde, and the vampires holding onto Crovax.
Over the next few hours they each killed another fifty harpies and their various evolutions, once they did though, the environment within the dungeon was thrown into turmoil. Huge cyclones kicked red dust everywhere making it more difficult to navigate. While the three of them were trudging through the dust there was an enormous harpy type creature on top of a jade skin colored man with four arms holding an egg the size of a small child. He sat cross legged with a large wooden akuma necklace around his neck, leather pants from some sort of armored creature, spiked bracers on each of his four forearms, and his silver hair in a ponytail bun. The jade man looked to be meditating even in this extremely perilous situation, but Soren immediately inspected the new arrivals.
Red dust kicked up around the party peppering their eyes, making it difficult for them to move forward. The Roc was staying above the Asura's striking range it seemed because even though the green man had his arms full, the Roc would try to attack him at random intervals but looked like it had to dodge out of the way at the last moment. The roc's attacks never landed, still Soren's party wanted the kill and rushed the boss monster. Skadi began to fly right towards it, but once she got within thirty feet she fell. Tempest, in her full lycanthrope form, jumped up and caught her. "What the hell was that," scream Skadi over the howling of the wind. Soren, black lightning crackling in his hand, pointed [Zakir] right at the roc. Once again when the bolt got within thirty feet of it or so the bolt took off at a ninety degree angle, dissipating into the sky. "Fuck," he roared, "its an ability!"
[Inspect]
[Roc Harpy]
[Area of Domain - The Roc Harpy controls all space within 30 feet of it]