(Eve, where’s the boss?)
(I don’t know, master. This body does not have any knowledge on it.)
Seeing that they reached the portal to the next floor, Nora was surprised. From her talk with Evelyn and Sheri, Nora knew that each floor had a floor boss which guards the portal to the next floor. Nora was confused as to why there weren’t any boss. However, her inquiries were soon answered when the other newbie asked the same question to the veterans.
“Erm.. Where’s the boss? Shouldn’t there be a floor boss right before the portal to the next floor?” The male newbie asked.
“The other parties cleared it before us. Unlike normal mob monsters who’ll respawn quite frequently, boss monsters will need 1 day to respawn. Thus, for the early levels, it’s based on luck whether we’ll faced a boss monster or not. Anyway, we should move on.” Derrick answered before walking through the portal.
Following his lead, everyone moved forward and walked through the portal. After reaching the other side, Nora noticed that the cave was brighter than before. Looking around, Nora understood why. There were vines of green ivy twined up on the rocky walls, and patches of grass growing on the floor. The reason why it was bright was because of the mana crystals in the ceiling which allowed the plants to photosynthesize.
“On this floor, there’ll be poisonous insects and plants attacking us. We should be able to easily take care of it but be aware of their poison. Even if you are strong enough to resist it, they will hurt like a bitch. Also mages, you can use your spells now. Just don’t waste it. Only use it to take care of the monsters that we missed.” Derrick commented before leading everyone forward.
Moving forward, everyone gradually smoothed out their cooperation. The 4 warriors in front kept the monsters at bay, while the mages dealt with those who managed to get pass the vanguards. Monsters rushed towards them from every direction and even from above. However, with Nora’s senses, Nora easily took care of them before they cause any problems.
As they steadily moved forward, Nora noticed mana crystals of many different colours growing on the cave walls. However, despite their allure, she saw that the miners were ignoring them. Nora guessed that they were just aiming for those on the third floor.
Advancing through the maze of passageways, the group soon appeared in a huge room. Huge vines and leaves were hanging down from above, while thorn roots spiked out of the ground.
“This should be the boss room for the 2nd floor. Be prepared, i’m not sure if the boss is dead or not. Most of the time, it’s hidden in the vines.” Derrick spoke.
“Our sight is limited huh. Let’s advance in close formation. The mages, porters and miners stay inside while we surround them, and protect them.” Another veteran replied.
“Let’s do it, and be careful of surprise attacks from the boss. Particularly overhead! It’s attacks are very strong and quick.” Derrick commented.
Sticking close to each other, everyone crept towards the end of the room. Since the vines were blocking the view, they had to get to the other side to check the portal. Only by checking the portal, would they be able to know whether the boss was alive or not. If it was alive, the portal would be closed. Only by killing the boss would the portal to the next floor open.
All of this doesn’t apply to Nora though. With ‘soul sight’, Nora could easily see if there was a boss in the area or not. And indeed, there was. A large praying mantis was perched up on top of a tree, its green exoskeleton camouflaging it into the green background.
After a while, the group reached the center of the room and was immediately swarmed by carnivorous plants. Thorny vines shot down from above and whips the group.
(Master, food?)
(No, later.)
(:C) Candy sent a thought to Nora that she was sad using their telepathic link.
*Tahng*
The warriors blocked it with their shields and slashed at the vines. Evelyn, in the body of the elf, Sheri, used wind blades and slashed the vines which managed to get past the warriors. Not only did Evelyn had the power to take over a body, Evelyn could use all the skills and abilities of the target as well.
Thus, in the case of Sheri, Evelyn was able to use wind spells that Sheri knew and used them to slice the vines apart.
Meanwhile, while everyone was busy fighting, Nora kept her sights on the level 39 praying mantis. She could see that the praying mantis was waiting for a chance to attack. It was like a predator waiting for its prey to show an opening. Nora could see that by its shape, it was very frail but extremely agile. Its body was very suited for sneak attacks with its poisoned scythes.
Though Nora could have easily killed it with even her lowest tier spell, Nora knew it would be too conspicuous. The rest of the party would be suspicious of how she was able to find it. She didn’t want to kill everyone to get rid of the evidence. She wanted to learn how to be civilised. She didn’t want to fall back to her old ways of killing everything that didn’t go her way by spamming spells like a trigger happy gun maniac.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
(Eve, make an opening to draw the praying mantis in.)
(Yes, master.)
*Vroosh*
The praying mantis immediately shot out from its hiding place with extremely speed. With it’s scythe aimed forward, it lunged itself at Evelyn.
“It’s the boss!” The warriors immediately noticed it and tried to attack. However, due to the opening Evelyn provided, it bypassed all of them and got inside the protective circle.
“Ahh!” The miners screamed and did something unexpected. Instead of breaking his return stone, he picked up his pickaxe, as if he was trying to use it to defend.
Nora decided not to think too much about it and created a thick wall of ice in front of the praying mantis. He must be new and must have been panicking.
The praying mantis’ scythe smashed onto the ice wall, leaving a crack. It was not able to get through. Panicking, the praying mantis immediately tried to run. It knew its surprise attack had failed.
However, it was too slow. Derrick charged forward and swung his sword down, cleaving the praying mantis into two.
“Sweet, we killed the boss, I wonder what it dropped?” One of the veterans exclaimed.
“I’m on it,” a porter said and immediately started dissecting the praying mantis. Using a knife, the porter clipped apart the exoskeleton and gouged its innards out.
“Jackpot! It’s a bloodstone! We can sell this for 30 gold coins!” One of the veterans shouted.
“Nice!” everyone said while high fiving each other, where Nora high fives Sheri.
“Alright team, let’s go!” Derrick shouted in joy and pumped his fist before leading everyone to the portal.
After reaching the other side, Nora noticed that the floor looked the same as the first floor. It was similar to a cave with its rocky interiors. The only difference were the large mana crystals growing on the walls. Unlike the previous floors, it was bigger and brighter. (ED note: That’s what she said :>.)
“The main enemies here are golems. Most are stone golem with the floor boss being a larger stone golem. But don’t worry, we won’t be fighting the boss. We’ll just be stationing ourselves near the red room and guarding it till the time runs out.”
Everyone agreed and moved forward in formation.
*Rumble*
The cave walls rumbled, and golems popped out. Level 45 rock golems the size of man stomped forward with their heavy body.
(Master, food?)
(No, soon.)
(Yay)
The rock golems slowly moved forward, and smashed their fist onto the warrior's shield, making a loud vibrating sound as it hit.
Immediately the vanguards parried their strikes, and counter attacked. Their counter attacks left a deep scar on their rocky body, but didn’t destroy them. Due to their high defense, the golems were able to take hits from stronger opponents. However, with their low speed, they were not able to take the advantage to attack again.
“Watch!” Derrick shouted as he and the veterans immediately struck the same place again. This time, the attack worked, destroying their golem core located in the middle of their chest. Though they had high defense, their slow speed led to their downfall.
“Just aim the core inside their chest. Even if they need two hits to be destroyed, we shouldn’t have any problem taking care of them. They are too slow to take advantage of their defense.” Derrick explained as a porter tried to salvage their golem core.
“Now come on, this way.”
Following Derrick, the party cleaved their way through towards the red room, while the porters looted and carried everything.
After reaching the red room, Nora saw that the room was covered in red ruby like mana crystals. Large amounts of red mana crystals grew out from the cave walls.
Just like before, the cave walls rumbled, and golems popped out. However, this time, the rock golems had mana crystals growing out from their bodies.
After moving forward to meet them, the group quickly killed them and looted their body of their core and mana crystals. The large sack which the porters carried grew larger in size.
After making sure the room was cleared, the miners walked forward and spoke, “we’ll mine everything here, you guys help and defend the entrance.”
“Okay, rest easy, as long as we stay and defend this entrance, nothing will get through,” Derrick spoke and made a thumbs up motion.
Everyone got into a new formation and placed themselves around the entrance. 2 warriors blocked the entrance while the other 2 stay behind them to swap if they get tired. As for the mages, the possessed Sheri and Nora, they stayed behind them, ready to provide cover whenever needed.
Soon, hordes of golems rushed towards them as the miners began mining the mana crystals with the pickaxes. The porters collected the mana crystals that fell, and placed them in their ever growing sack of loot.
(Eve, I think you should let Sheri come out, and let her experience the dungeon. You should check the memories of the others to see what they have.)
(Sure, master.)
Evelyn left Sheri’s body and flew into everyone's body. After leaving the body, Sheri looked dazed and confused. However, after a few seconds, she returned to normal. As if what she did while under the control of Evelyn was nothing out of the ordinary.
This was because of Evelyn’s ability to alter the memories of the body she took over. After leaving Sheri’s body, Evelyn had alter it such that Sheri perceived everything her body did for the past few minutes was of her control. All weird things she felt was something of her imagination.
Gaining control, Sheri supported the warriors, and shot wind blades at the golems.
Fighting back the hordes of golems which seemed to infinitely spawn, the group continued for an hour. Every time one of the two warriors which guarded the entrance got tired, the warrior that stood behind him would swap. As for the mages, Nora and sheri would switch every time one was running low on mana. And obviously, Nora faked the amount of mana she had to show that she was only at the silver one stage.
*Ching*
“That’s it, that’s the last of them. We’ve collected all the mana crystals in this room. We’re lucky the previous didn’t take all of them. Our timing was just right,” a miner spoke after mining the last mana crystal.
“So should we head back up now, we only have around 20 minutes till our time is up?” the newbie warrior asked.
“Yeah, we should,” Derrick answered.
Everyone agreed with him and nodded. Nora looked around and saw that no one was looking at her. Taking the opportunity, Nora dropped Bracelet-form Candy and left with the group.
(Candy, wait for a few minutes and then eat what you want. But hide whenever a person gets near you, okay? Don't show yourself to anyone, I'll come find you next week.)
(Yes, Mama! )
Slowly moving back up, the fighters cleared a path back up, while the porters carry the large sack of loot. The miners carried the excess of the mana crystals with their own magical sacks.
Going back up, there were fewer monsters blocking the way. Only a few monsters managed to respawn, making the group’s journey back up easier than going down.
“Good job everyone.”
After returning to the surface, Derrick thanked everyone for their good work and led everyone to the auction house to calculate their loot. After calculating everything, everyone saw that the total amount of loot gained was 128 gold and 87 silver.
“Okay, we’ll pay the porters their 15 gold first. This will leave us with 83 gold and 87 silver. Then each of the miners will pay us 20 gold, it’ll give us a total of 143 gold and 87 silver. Sheri and Drake, the two newbie D ranks will get 14 gold and 38 silver while the 4 of us C ranks will get 28 gold and 77 silver. I’ll take the leftover gold and silver as fee for being the party leader, and for planning this dungeon run. Anyone not okay with that?
Everyone nodded and agreed before taking their share. Everyone was quite pleased with their earning, especially with the extra gold they got from getting the bloodstone.
“So, does everyone want to continue partying up? Next time, we’ll be able to go to the 4th floor if our coordination improves.”