Kossa renewed our buffs, then Onre opened the metal door. It opened inward, and I could see that both sides had a door handle which would allow the door to unlatch from its closed position. I was amused at seeing another door, a wooden one, just five feet down the short hallway. It was wide enough for three of us to walk abreast, even with Ferret morphed to Odd’s Earth Elemental form. I found it funny to see he had taken Odd’s persona, as well, but hey, two rank points. The hallway was about 8 feet high.
Arrjee was now wielding both his sword and the small, round, bronze shield dropped by the gremlin lord. It turned out that it wasn’t one of the shields it had wielded, neither of which had been enchanted. The defeat-drop had a minor enchantment for extra durability, but not self-repair. The other enhancement seemed more significant to me, a +1 rank to any skill that made use of a shield. Arrjee thought Sun should use it, but he demurred, with both their Block and Basic Shieldsmanship already being at Rank C. Sun thought it would serve Arrjee’s Rank D Basic Shieldsmanship better. Arrjee kept it and said when wielded, the skill’s rank showed as ‘D’, followed by a ‘C’ in parenthesis. Without self-repair, I don’t know how many battles it would last, but it would certainly be nice to have until it becomes damaged beyond use.
“This wooden door is locked,” Onree said. “I suspect a party that couldn’t pick the lock could break it down, but you-all are not members of such a party.”
He had to remove his backpack to gain access to the locksmithing toolkit Mista Smithson had made for him. He had also made Onre a number of trapped boxes, which allowed him to practice both his Detect Trap and Pick Lock skills. For now, we kept those stacked in our apartment. The Thieves Guild would soon be opening a Trap Room for members, but it was not available yet. Onre was planning on donating what Mista built for him to support that room. Well, he was keeping his locksmithing tools, but his trap boxes, with locks of various difficulties, would become guild property.
Onre couldn’t actually disable a trap yet, but Mista’s traps simply uncorked foul-odor vials that were not dangerous. It turns out that he was unable to detect the mechanics of a trap; there had to be an actual, functional trap to sense something and allow him to get any rank points. Grandma, Mowd, and Corval were all able to refill the vials. It was usually Corval, because he was using Onre’s boxes to train with as well. Onre didn’t consider needing an actual trap a hassle at all; it turns out that at higher ranks, Detect Trap becomes essentially a ‘danger sense’ skill, and currently the ‘danger’ he faced while training was a little stink. – Or not; a lot of the time a box would not have an active trap. ‘Detecting not’ is part of ‘detecting’.
The wooden door was not a trap itself. It was just locked, and it only took Onre a few seconds to open it with his tools. The hallway beyond could be thought of as a trap, though. There had been seven flying monsters waiting in silence beyond it, in a slightly wider hallway ranging from Level 6 to 8. The ceiling of the next hall was about 11 feet high. The first monster I analyzed was,
Level 7 Flying Snake – youthful, sexless, 6 stones
Angry, 1500 XP worth, 0 defeated
Poisonous bites, spits toxic darts
They were all about five feet long and almost silently flying erect, just a slight flapping sound from their wings, which kept their tails a foot off the ground. For most of their body length they were about ten inches in diameter. Onre was immediately hit by four darts, one each from the four closest snakes. “Crap! Guys, don’t allow me to open anything else without stealthing myself first. Shit, I know better.”
He backed up, and Sun took the lead. Kossa dropped a Void Barrier between us and them, and slowed them down with her flute. She also dropped her Void Field around them. Ferret moved to the front, with he and Sun now blocking the doorway. Ahhshaww began winding Chilling Breeze. Their darts bounced right off Sun’s shields and were unable to sufficiently penetrate Ferret’s stone form. One went right through Ahhshaww; it slowed very slightly but did not affect her at all.
I dosed Onre with Bless Blood until his poison indicator cleared. Kossa had her Absorb Warmth on the Level 8 snake. Arrjee was able to Push one at a time into each other, but it was only distracting them, not damaging any. At that point I realized how ill-prepared we were for a ranged battle. Arrjee could Push, Pull, and Hold. Kossa and Ahhshaww had area of effect debuffs, as well as Kossas single-target but slow-to-damage attack. Onre, Sun, Ferret, and I? Squat diddly zilch. Ferret would eventually gain access to species’ traits which would give him some ranged capability but he wouldn’t be able to use those until his Shapeshifting was at Rank C.
But we’ll do what we can. “Keep one of them alive. We’ll hold the last one still while Ferret learns its form. He won’t be able to spit darts today, but he’ll be ready when his Shapeshifting gets good enough.”
Fortunately, they could not keep constantly spitting a barrage of darts, so two of them advanced to the doorway. It functioned as an effective bottleneck.
Dammit, even if I just had my bo, I could be a lot more useful right now.
“Onre, our job is to keep Sun and Ferret healthy, as well as anyone else who gets hit by a stray dart. Everyone else, do as much damage to their front line as you can. I’m sure the ones behind will move forward to replace those we defeat.”
As Ferret battered one of the snakes with one fist while stabbing it with his knife in the other, he said, “It’s nice having inch and a half skin. Even if one of those darts penetrates with its full half-inch tip, the poison won’t reach my blood.”
“You still have blood?” Arrjee asked. “Odd doesn’t.”
“Odd is 100% Earth Elemental. I’m probably 50% right now. Beneath my stone plates I’m still flesh, blood, heart, lungs – all nice and gooey.” He laughed. “Ahhshaww just asked me why I am talking and not killing harder.”
Odd explained his external anatomy a while back. His ‘stone plates’ weren’t pure stone. Each one was an organ in its own right, mostly made of silica and other minerals. Binding the minerals together was a sort of callused skin that gave a little flexibility, toughness, and ‘give’ to each plate. Each plate also produced some sort of unguent which his body used internally to keep the ligaments holding the plates together, lubricated and flexible, and reducing plate-to-plate friction. I saw some of that brown stuff ooze out of him the day we met, when he had been injured by a zebor.
“Ahhh, crap, one of them just bit me on the cheek and tore off a little piece,” Ferret announced. “Its teeth are long enough to penetrate my thinner facial plates.” I could see he had been poisoned, blood being present, Onre was already dosing him with Bless Blood. I reached around his face to use Heal Other.
As I did I saw at the upper periphery of my eyes a shield floating just above our pseudo-elemental’s head. Arrjee told him, “You take this, Ferret. Start by protecting Forrest’s hand while he heals you. Then it is up to you whether to keep the knife armed or not.”
“But I don’t have any shieldsmanship skill.”
“Take it. I think you will, at Rank F.” He did so with his free hand, and immediately blocked one of the snakes going for my hand at his cheek. Arrjee seemed to momentarily hold the snake back as well,
“Yes, Basic Shieldsmanship is listed as F in parenthesis. Thank you.”
I finished my healing and had what was probably a dumb idea. “Guys, after the next round of darts, I’m going to scooch myself on my back between Sun and Ferret. I’ll grab one of the front line ones by the tail and pull it into this hall. It’s a gamble, but it doesn’t look like they can fly horizontally, only vertically. I’m hoping to ground it, at least mostly. Try not to let dumbass die”
Arrjee said, “That might work, my dumbass brother. And I can use Pull to help you come back, since you won’t be fighting me. The snake will be fighting you, so its will will not be trying to counter me. I’ll also try to Hold it as you do so, but I’m not very good at that yet. I’ll have my sword at the ready.”
At that point, Sun’s truncheon finished off one of them, leaving six left. I asked, should I grab the fresh one that takes its place, or the one that’s already half dead?”
“Fresh you grab.” || Grab the fresh one. obviously
“Finish you allow.” || Allow us to finish the one we are already working on. please
“Dumbass you die. Dumbass not you live.” || You’re only a dumbass if you die. humor, encourage
I laughed. “That makes me feel so much better.” || Thank you.
I layed on my back, waiting for the next round of darts to come. There seems to be a new batch every 25 seconds. I assumed they would eventually run out of poison, or aether, or however they make those things. It didn’t make sense to wait for them all to be used up, which they might never be. The round came. “Here goes.”
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I used my legs to scooch myself forward. Sun and Ferret had made a gap between their legs wide enough for me to squeeze through. Suddenly I started moving steadily forward. Arrjee was pushing. I should have thought of that. If he can pull me back, he could also push me forward. My face moved to almost beneath the center of the new snake and I gripped its tail with both hands. “Pull!” He did so, and also did his best to Hold it still.
It tried to bend forward and down to bite me, but as I had hoped, they were not very good at horizontal flight. Plus Sun bonked its head hard with his truncheon and forced back its upper neck with one of his shields. As the snake and I were pulled into the first hall, Sun kept bashing at it to keep it as low to the ground as possible. Ferret kept the other frontline one occupied. At least until it died. Two more were moving to the doorway bottleneck. Arrjee, Onre, and Kossa were able to defeat mine in less than a minute with their sword and knives, while I did my best to hold it against me on the ground.
“Ahhshaww says Daddy Forrest is crazy, and wants to see it again.” Ferret’s voice was very amused in tone.
I: Confirmed. Yet quite effective.
“Then she shall. Should I go for the one on the right or left of the doorway?” Sun said the left one. We continued our system, two-on-two at the doorway, and me pulling one of them down and back, which would be replaced by another snake. It only took a few more minutes for just the Level 8 boss to be left. It was at the doorway, being battered by both Sun and Ferret. I noticed that this one’s description said both ‘poisonous and paralytic bites’.
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“Okay, guys, let’s keep this one alive for a few minutes. Ferret, how long does it take you to learn a new form?” He said at Rank D it took six minutes of continuous contact and that his timeout from learning Ahhshaww’s form had already passed.
“Does anyone object to me trying to manhandle it to the ground and hold it down? Ferret, my goal would be to hold it as still as possible while you learn it. Will that make it easier for you?”
“Yes. If I don’t have to worry about my own safety and what it might do, I can focus better. Also, and you may not like this, can you heal it to 100%? I don’t want to learn the form of an injured flying snake.”
I replied, “While that wasn’t part of my plan, I understand why it is necessary. Onre, keep me healed and healthy. I suspect this one’s poison is worse than the others, and that paralytic capability worries me. I’ll heal and hold it down, with Arrjee’s, and everybody else’s help, really. I’ll eventually want to hug it tight just below its head, with its body snaked along my torso. Hopefully its wings at my upper stomach won’t cause a significant problem, but watch for that, too. Once I’ve got its head pretty much immobilized and facing away from me, its wings are the only limbs it has to try to fight back. They haven’t used their wings as weapons yet, but none of us have held our bodies against their wings. If something starts going horribly wrong, start killing the damn thing instead of holding it.”
“In just a second, make room for me to rush past it. Sun’s taunt will hopefully keep it facing away from me once I’m behind it. Then I’ll turn around and sort of jump on its back; my Athletic Leap should give me a lot of extra momentum. With any luck, it will fall face forward to the ground, and I’ll try to roll over so it is on top of me.”
Kossa asked, “Since Ferret will want the snake at 100%, I have shut off Absorb Warmth. I’m wondering why you want it on top of you? Wouldn’t it be better to have your weight helping to hold it down?”
I thought for a moment. During that time, Ahhshaww’s Chilling Breeze stopped as well. Ferret must have asked her to do so.
“I actually hadn’t considered that. I am envisioning in my head that it will be easier for you-all to help me hold it if it is face up, and I hold its neck to keep it from bending and firing darts at any of you. What does everyone think? Kossa’s point is a good one, the length of my body could be helping contain it. If it is on top of me, we’ll lose that advantage.”
Ferret brilliantly suggested, “Snake sandwich. I’ve got to be in contact with it anyway. You roll over and be the bottom piece of bread, and I’ll be the top. I’ll position myself below its neck so it cannot bite me. Then I’ll increase my mass until you say to stop. I’m sure that will be more than your mass would have been.”
While the boss snake wasn’t significantly longer than the others, it’s diameter was greater, probably 14 inches or so of mostly solid muscle. It is going to weigh a lot, but that weight will be spread over the length of my torso, just as will Ferret’s. Everyone thought it sounded like a good plan.
“Interface, do you like snake sandwiches?”
I: Do you have any condiments? Seriously, I can envision it being a very effective maneuver, so long as it cannot use its wings offensively.
“Any last questions or suggestions?” There were none. I removed my gloves so I could begin healing it with max efficiency when the time came.. “Here goes.” Sun and Ferret moved to unblock the doorway, and the snake followed, with its body moving slightly forward, its head primarily gnashing at Sun. One wing was in our hall, and the other remained in its. With HPR Boost on, I squeezed past it as quickly as I could. It managed to bite through my gorget, and my status indicators showed I have the status effects of poison and paralysis. Before I rushed it from behind, I gave myself a heavy dose of Bless Blood, knowing Onre would complete the job in the other hallway. I gave myself a running start and leaped, aiming to grab it by the neck. It wasn’t faced a half-circle away from me as I had hoped, but a third of a circle should still prevent it from biting me again.
As I had hoped, it fell to the ground with me atop it.
Momentum god, thank you again.
I hadn’t tried any fancy reverse-Dodge trick, keeping it completely inactive the whole time. The motions I make under Dodge’s control are sometimes unpredictable. This maneuver needed a degree of precision.
As it and I fell through the doorway, I noticed that Ferret had dropped his shield and removed his gloves. His enchanted armor would resize through most bipedal forms, from normal Ferret, to 9-foot giant Ferret, to Odd-Ferret.
I wonder if Skawa further enhanced the armor he first gave Ferret? As far as I know he doesn’t have foresight, and wouldn’t know Ferret would eventually become a shapeshifter.
Unknown. And you have other concerns at present.
“Just a random thought. Focus on snake, check.”
Kossa and Arrjee helped me roll over, positioning me below it. Sun was focused on its head, keeping both its darts and teeth blocked by his shields. I should have realized that this sucker would be cold. Kossa’s attack had been on it for over 15 minutes. As Ferret lay on top of us, his head positioned just below my arms at its neck, I could feel him slowly ramp up his mass, and before I felt too much weight, I told him that was enough. Ahhshaww separated herself from him and floated several feet away, remaining low to the floor. Ferret said she would be winding a Warming Breeze. Onre was focused on healing me with his bare hands, and eliminating the poisoin and paralytic status effects.
Having two healers in a party is great! I can’t imagine being in a party with none, and having to depend on potions alone.
Many parties lack healers. Yours is quite capable.
The breeze's partially aetherial nature meant I could feel it through my armor, which itself had the Climate Comfort charm. It also provided an almost warm layer between my body and the snake’s leather skin., which was probably 15 degrees cooler than room temperature. And those are centigrade degrees!
It turned out that its wings had no offensive capability. It repeatedly beat them against my body, in vain. My armor and resistances made it like I was being slapped by a small child, though with bigger hands. It didn’t take me long to heal the snake sufficiently that its status block disappeared from my analysis. However, that meant it still had to regain 10% more of its health, and I didn’t know where to put my hands for Heal Other. “Because we want it at 100% health, and I don’t know everywhere it is damaged, and it’s hard to see the thing from down here, I’m going to finish with Share Health. I have HPR Boost going. Onre, can you add your Share Health? Together we’ll get this guy topped off quickly, and Ferret can finally begin learning its form.
It was three minutes before our Share Healths shut off, indicating it was fully healthy. “Go for it, Ferret.” By now the thing was just half-heartedly struggling. With Sun preventing its mouth from doing any damage and the other five of us dedicated to holding it as still as possible, there wasn’t much it could do.
While Ferret was learning to be a flying snake, we were speculating on what might follow on this floor. Onre’s thought was, “Since this floor has started out with a hallway, a locked door, and another hallway, the entire floor may be a maze full of traps, passages, and monsters around many corners and through many doors.”
I added, “I agree. We still aren’t very deep in the dungeon, so I don’t believe any of the traps will be insta-kill, or even maim-worthy. Still, serious injury is a possibility, as is frustration.”
Arrjee asked, “Why frustration?”
“There might be a lock that Onre lacks sufficient skill to open, on a door that we cannot break down. I suspect in that case, there would be another, perhaps long and complex, path to the other side of such a door. Or, there could be a drop-trap that drops a very heavy cage around us. Basically, we could spend a lot more time puzzling our way through here than fighting. It’s possible it could take many hours to reach the boss room.”
I: You need not be completely frustrated. The team gets XP for each trap or puzzle solved, so do not think of a maze as something which wastes your time.
Kossa wondered, “Isn’t it possible that this is not a maze? That the next door leads us to a swamp or something?”
Onre answered, “Yes, I have heard of that, floors which begin as a maze, but transition to a large, monster-infested area. If I had to guess, I would say that this one is a maze all the way to the boss room.”
“Maze we explore?” || If it is a maze, should we plan on completely exploring it? okay either way
I said, “Let’s decide once we reach the boss room. If that’s in an hour we might be happy to explore more. If in six hours, probably not so much, unless maybe we have been getting lots of treasures or something.” || might be fun
We spoke for several minutes more, until Ferret told us he knew the flying snake form. By that time, our Level 8 foe had become more docile, showing as ‘aggressive’ rather than ‘angry’. As Ferret rolled off of it to stand, I wrapped my legs around its lower half to help me limit its motion. These disturbances angered it, and everyone else began attacking. Being positioned as I was I couldn’t help with the damage. I even received a few over-stabs and indirect bonks, but it was minor damage compared to what we healers receive while training. Two minutes later, it was no more.
After we picked up all the drops, I asked if anyone wanted to meditate for a few minutes. No one’s stats necessitated it. Onre picked up his locksmithing toolkit and placed it in one of his pouches rather than his backpack. Both he and Kossa put their packs back on. We were ready to see what was down the hall.
We commenced our trek. After two turns I sensed something in the corner of my eye. We found a treasure – a small, untrapped pouch of sweet dust partially concealed by an irregular wall. Ahhshaww happily added it to her internal treasure pouch, just as we had added the monster drops to our pouches.
Thank you, 28 perception.
I: You each receive 30 XP for locating a hidden treasure. Forrest kept 11 and shared 19.
“Are you going to report this dungeon XP all the time?”
No. I was stressing the point that walking the halls has value even when there are no monsters.
“Because we might be walking through a lot of unoccupied halls.”
Yes.
After 3 more turns with no branches, we came to another closed and locked door.