Chapter 28

Are You Sure That’s a Good Idea?

The mood of the dungeon changed. It was darker. Quieter. We didn’t run into a single trap. The tunnel was made of soft dirt from floor to ceiling, and absorbed much of the sound we made. Soil occasionally fell from the ceiling.

Most unusual were the globs of goo that bubbled in small pools along the bottom of the walls. We had to inspect it, of course, to settle our curiosity.

“Touch it,” Vynk said.

“I’m not touching it!” Robern said.

Filo poked at the goo with her staff. When she removed her staff, a string of the goo stretched out like melting cheese. Gagging in disgust, Filo flung her staff to cast the goo off.

“Ugh, it’s like snot,” she said.

“That’s a whole lot of snot,” Arris said, unperturbed.

I largely kept silent as the party wrapped up their investigation and decided to move forward. Though I had doubts, I focused on sticking to my plan.

Know when to lead, and when to be patient.

It wasn’t long before we ran into the creature responsible for the snot. It was a giant grey-skinned monster. Parts of it were covered in mica speckled stone, almost like armor, or heavy callused skin. It’s forearms, back, neck and head were covered with the rocky armor. The monster emerged from a burrow at the foot of the wall to our right. Since it nearly blended into the wall, we’d come quite close to it without noticing.

“Back up, back up!” Lep said.

The monster swiped a hand at us, missing by a few meters. Then it unrolled from its curled position. It came out of the burrow with a long nasty growl. Its face was disfigured. One eye was larger than the other and they were uneven. Its nose was a singular crater-like hole in its face. Its mouth was made of rock that was broken in half. Cracked pebbles formed its teeth. Skin curled in scabs where it met the stone on its face. After it growled, a long stretch of snot slipped out of its nose and pooled on the ground.

It rose to its full height and that’s when we realized it must be one of the humpback grapplers. Its head was lower than its back. Its shoulders were higher than its forehead.

Lep’s spells were useless for dealing damage, but they did distract the monster the first couple of times. The only ones who could really deal damage were Vynk, Arris, and Filo. The rest of us merely distracted the beast. My sentinels were able to trap it in place and soak up damage in place of those on the frontline. They were pulverized to spectre dust every few seconds and I had to keep casting them.

Vynk planted himself in the center and spent most of the fight parrying, only occasionally scoring minor hits. Arris and Filo cast their Oak Beard spells and beat the grappler to death. In its death, it crumbled to pieces, disassembling to dirt and rocks.

“Those sentinels of yours are going to come in handy if we keep running into these things,” Vynk said. “I wish I could have dealt more damage. I was put on defense the whole time.”

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“I kept aiming for its eyes,” Robern said, “but I couldn’t land a hit. All my bolts broke off of its skin.”

“I have the worst kind of spells for a dungeon like this,” Lep said. “All I’ve got are fire spells.”

“We did pretty well,” I said. “We need to be careful to only take on one at a time. It went through my sentinels so fast, I didn’t have much time to cast Burning Flare or anything else.”

“You’re right Tosin,” Robern said. “We need to take them on, one at a time. We’ll be screwed if we take on even two of them at once, let alone three or more. I have an idea for that. I’m going to use Shadow Spool to sneak up on them. If there are a bunch of them together, I’ll stealthily rouse them and lead them back down the tunnel towards you guys.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Pelle said. “Having one of us go on ahead of the others makes me nervous.”

I noticed Arris, Filo, and Lep glance my way. They were either gauging my reaction or anticipating that I would have something to say.

“I’m the only one who can be stealthy,” Robern said.

We deliberated over how to handle the humpback grapplers for a few minutes. I had some questions, but Robern was confident in his plan. I could tell that the rest of the group wasn’t quite convinced, but there didn’t seem to be better options. So we decided to execute Robern’s plan.

A lot of time was spent waiting in combat formation. Robern would cast Shadow Spool, disappear into the darkness of the dungeon, and reappear minutes later, not having encountered any grapplers. Then we would advance for twenty minutes at a time, stop, and repeat the process. It was slow going, but being cautious ended up strongly in our favor.

After Robern’s fifth return, he informed us there were three grapplers ahead.

“Two of them have burrowed into the floor. The third has burrowed into the wall.”

“There’s no way we can take on three at a time,” Arris said, still not fully onboard with Robern’s plan.

“Robern, if you’re confident you can wake them up one at a time and lead them to us, then let’s do it,” I said.

Robern paused. He frowned. He chewed his bottom lip. The fact that he was pausing to think was a really good sign. He was using his brain for once. Considering his actions. Considering the viability of his proposed plan. The others were quite nervous.

At last, Robern turned to us and said, “I can do it.”

“You sure?” Pelle said, wringing her hands.

“I think you guys should backtrack a bit. That way the other grapplers are less likely to hear sounds of battle. That’s the only thing I’m worried about.”

It was soon settled, and Robern disappeared into his Shadow Spool spell. The rest of us walked back down the tunnel for a few minutes.

“I’m sorry, but this makes me incredibly nervous,” Pelle said.

“Same,” Arris said.

“To be honest, me too,” Vynk said. “Those grapplers are tough to beat. My sword has been taking damage on the edge. I have to use the flat of the blade to parry, and I’m worried that going on the offensive will only break my sword.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” I said.

We ended up waiting for a lot longer than I felt we should have. Just when we were starting to get worried about Robern, I heard the growls and footsteps of a grappler.

“This is it,” Lep said. “Let’s get into formation.”

Robern stepped out of his shadow spell that twirled into the torchlight, and the grappler followed just behind him. It growled and tried to bat off Lep’s Hand of Flames. I cast both sentinels and directed them to grab onto the grappler and hold it in place. Vynk was again front and center, feigning attacks, and defaulting into parry mode.

In a few minutes, Filo and Arris beat the grappler to death.

“Nice job everyone!” Robern said.

“Think you can keep this up?” Arris said.

“I think so,” Robern said. “Sorry it took so long, I had to be really careful.”

For much of the dungeon, we exhausted ourselves using Robern’s strategy. We’d fought and killed twenty grapplers by the time we had to start thinking of taking a long night’s rest, though we couldn’t tell if it was actually night or not.

Our only problem was the torches. The further we traveled, the faster they burned out.