The mech generated by the MESS key was a bit different than the first one I had used back when I was captured by the cultists. Instead of the first generation mech, I was strapped into the newer version. Better armored and protected, I doubted that anything these little tiki guys brought to the fight could even touch me.
As far as weapons, I was making good use of everything at my disposal. In one of the mech’s hands, I held a long metal spear that I was using to sweep away entire swaths of the enemy. My other hand was just a metal claw, but it worked just fine to crush any tiki I could get ahold of.
I had a magic missile launcher over my right shoulder, but the one that would normally be on the left was missing. It probably required me to higher tier or rank for it to appear. Inside the launcher there were five magic missile wands, and I was already reaching out with my mana to connect with them, even as I engaged in melee.
I moved in a circle around our party, keeping the tikis at bay, and buying time for those of our group that were still on their feet to organize. Marie, Nicolas, and James were all down, paralyzed from the tiki’s poisoned weapons. Eliza was still on her feet and engaging the enemy, firing off magic missiles every few seconds.
Our other tank, Melissa, was having a hard time. Her build required her to be in melee combat, taking and dealing damage to maximize her potential. The little opponents we faced didn’t give her a clean fight and either would stab and run or shoot darts from a distance. When she caught up to them, their small health pools left little life for her to steal, and the poison from multiple wounds was starting to slow her down.
“Lillia, make sure everyone that’s down doesn’t have a dart sticking out of them,” I ordered. Lillia was having the same trouble closing with the targets as Melissa, so her time would be better spent making sure that those who were down didn’t have poison darts still infecting them. With a decent supply of mana in the dungeon, our recovery times would be amplified, and I was sure that everyone would shake off the poison if they weren’t being continually infected with it.
My mana connection to the magic missile wands was complete and I started to add their damage to the mix. Every second or so, a new missile flew out of the launcher, each hitting and killing their target. This proved to be too much for the enemy, who had taken over a hundred casualties already and in the distance someone, or something, shrieked out the order to fall back.
I didn’t stop killing them until the last tiki creature was out of the clearing. A few of them made their escape into the thick jungle foliage, but they had left the bulk of their force dead in the clearing. I kept on alert while the others did what they could for our fallen.
Both Grulnok’s and Rupert were down, but not killed. After a few minutes, my minions rose to their feet, no worse for wear. It wasn’t long before the others groggily came to, each of us only sporting superficial wounds from the tiny assailants. As soon as he was able to concentrate, Nicolas activated his aura to help everyone shake off any lingering effects of the poison.
“Rico, you didn’t tell us you had a Gundam,” Nicolas said with a grin as he shifted his aura from cleaning out the poison, to healing our wounds.
“I think the question we should be asking is if he has one for each of us,” Eliza added.
“Sorry, this was a reward for a long quest. It’s a one-time deal, but I thought it was needed,” I replied.
“Well, I’m glad you had that, I don’t know if we would have fought them off without it, Marie offered.
“Why don’t we take a few minutes to recover before we head deeper into this place. I’m sure the little tiki guys are watching us, but I don’t think they’ll try a mass assault again, at least not here,” James said.
“I’m just glad the mana level in here is higher than the first dungeon I was in,” Eliza said. She had been pumping out magic missiles like crazy and though her Force Mage class probably made that more efficient, it had to have been a big drain on her mana pool. She was right, I noticed that my own mana pool was recharging at a much faster rate than it had done inside the kobold and camel spider dungeon.
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As everyone rested, I popped open the cockpit and climbed up to the magic missile launcher. Each of the wands equipped on the mech held a dozen shots, so I had a total of sixty to work with when they were fully charged. I’d fired off fifteen during the fight, and while we had some downtime, I needed to reload what I could. My mana pool pretty small after most of it was reserved for my summoned minions, but I’d done this before when helping Fitzfazzle, and I was able to recharge three shots by the time the others were ready to go.
“We should probably adjust our marching order. I vote that Rico and his giant mech take the lead,” James suggested.
“I’m good with that, though visibility isn’t the greatest in here, I may not be able to spot those little guys if they’re well hidden in the foliage. I also might miss any traps that are laid out. Maybe Marie could follow me, with my summoned minions covering her,” I offered.
“Lead on robo-summoner,” Nicolas said. He might have looked like someone’s middle-aged dad, but Nicolas was turning out to be a pretty cool guy, and someone I’d have fun hanging out with.
The trail through the jungle dungeon was just barely wide enough for the mech to stomp through. Twisting and turning, we couldn’t see very far ahead, and after only a few minutes of traveling, Marie called us to a stop. She detected a trap of some kind, higher up in the vines stretching over our heads.
“I know it’s there, but I can’t see it,” Marie said, pointing in the general area.
“No luck for me either, can anyone tell what the trap is?” Eliza asked.
“Let me take a crack at it, I doubt whatever the dungeon had placed here was designed to go up against a mech,” I said, waving the others back. Once they were at what I thought should be a safe distance, I stretched out my arm and swung the spear through the area the trap was supposed to be in.
As soon as the spear hit the vines overhead, they grasped onto the weapon and pulled. If they had dropped onto someone’s head and neck, the surprise attack would have been deadly. To me, it was merely an inconvenience. I pulled back, the mech easily overpowering the strength of the vines, tearing them from where they had anchored themselves to the jungle.
They dropped to the ground, squirming, and leaking a foul-looking green slime from their torn ends. After a few seconds, the vines curled up and began to dry out. A few more swipes of my spear and a final confirmation from Marie told us the danger was over. I resumed my slow march deeper into the jungle dungeon. My mech was by no means a quiet vehicle, but the soft jungle floor absorbed a good portion of the noise my stomping made.
Unlike a normal dungeon, this one didn’t have rooms, instead, it had small clearings off the main path through the dungeon. The first few clearings were empty, save for the remains of a campfire along with shredded tents and scattered equipment. We looked for anything that could tell us what had happened, or anything of value, but there was nothing but broken junk.
A bit further down the path, one of the clearings was filled with tiki monsters rooting through the wreckage of another camp. There were dozens of tiki monsters, but they were easily overpowered by our team. We ended up destroying the entire group without taking any damage or needing to expend much in the way of mana.
This place seemed larger than the other dungeons, and after a bit of travel, we found a final clearing, and the entrance to the next level. The sounds of fighting greeted us as we approached. Someone was shouting orders that were heard over the sounds of battle and the shrieks of the tiki monsters.
“Rico, hold up. Let’s see what’s happening before we go charging in,” James said.
“If it’s like the dungeon we cleared earlier, there were two factions inside the place that were battling each other for control,” Marie explained.
“Yes, that was common for most of us, but some of the factions weren’t hostile, and we may want to pick a side in the fight. Is anyone stealthy enough to look without being seen?” James asked.
“I’m not a rogue or anything, but I move pretty quietly, and if a couple of tiki freaks jump me, I can handle them on my own,” Melissa offered. She crept down the trail, quickly turning a corner and disappearing from sight. The sounds of combat continued, but they didn’t move closer, or toward where Melissa had disappeared. After less than a minute, she returned.
“What are we dealing with?” I asked.
“Another big swarm of tikis, along with a pair of giant anacondas they have fighting with them. A large camp of dwarves was trying to fight them off. The dwarves seemed to be holding their own for now, but they’re being whittled down. I didn’t see much in the way of weapons, and the dwarves were just using knives, shovels, and other tools to fight back with,” Melissa reported.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m thinking we help the dwarves against the known enemy. If the dwarves turn out to be hostile after we deal with the tiki monsters, we can have Rico stomp on them,” James offered.
“Sounds like a plan to me, let’s go,” I said. If we were going to try and help the dwarves, we needed to do it while at least some of them were still alive.