Chapter 16: A Natural Disaster

Verity ran panting to the guild so that she would be there when it opened. There was something big, something horrible that had been discovered last night: A Natural Dungeon.

It wasn’t far from Falst, just about 10 miles, but that made it the first location that would be attacked in the event of a Dungeon Break. What was most scary was that nobody was sure when it formed, so they couldn’t be sure of when it’d break until someone went inside.

A Godmade dungeon was fair in that regard, it would give breathing room for you to step in and take a look without being attacked, but it was impossible to be certain with a Natural one, nothing was ever predictable – anything could happen.

Verity almost ran into Silver as he stepped into the guild. She was tired enough, from not sleeping the night before, that she almost killed the kid in a moment of lapsed control.

Glancing behind himself at her, Silver raised an eye brow and his expressive eyes mirrored the words he spoke, “What are you doing?”

Verity put her hands on the knees of her trousers, full of regret for not putting more stats in [VIT], panting as she responded, “Haven’t…you…heard…the news?!”

His eyes sent a clear “no.”

“A Natural Dungeon has been found near here!”

As she watched, his silver eyes flashed and sharpened like a griffin focusing on its prey, “What [Level] is it? What kind of monsters inhabit it?”

That one guild employee stepped up, Verity didn’t remember her name, but she was the one with the strongest bond with Silver. A familial one too.

“We don’t know yet. The Guild Master should be back soon with the details. We can only pray that it isn’t above Lv. 40. [Cliff], her party,” Sister pointed at Verity, “is the only one currently here above Lv. 40.”

Silver looked at Sister with an odd expression, his eyes had become half closed and his mouth a straight line. He maintained that expression for a long moment before he spoke, “You just had to put down a flag, didn’t you? Well,” he looked at Verity glumly, “I wish you all the best in clearing the Lv. 45 dungeon this is gonna turn out to be.”

Sister slugged Silver on the arm, “Don’t talk like that! It’ll be fine, just a nice Lv. 22 Natural Dungeon! NO, Lv. 5!”

Silver looked at her with pity and gently patted her on the shoulder before he turned to Verity, “Want to spar while we wait?”

Verity grinned, “Sure!”

She needed to get her mind off things, and sparring with Silver was always fun, he always seemed to know just what she’d do and try to slip in her guard, the only reason he failed as often as he did was because her stats were a lot higher and she had [Skills], something he lacked, but she’d be excited to see what he could do when he finally got his [Blessing].

They moved out back and Verity put on some soft leather gloves. Since he didn’t seem to mind how much damage he’d take every time she hit him, she didn’t need to use the stupid padded ones.

She did need to gain [Stat Limiters] with the [Rituals] for her [STR] and [AGI] when they first started sparring. Her [STR] was close to breaking 200, so a casual punch from her would be enough to turn him into paste, but it was all worth it since her [Martial Mastery] had shot up insanely quickly while fighting the kid. She’d finally broken the Lv. 50 barrier on it which had made their time in the [Hallowed Graveyard] much easier for her, fighting bare-handed against the undead was usually a pretty bad idea, but with the increase in damage that the [Skill] brought along with the bonuses she got at Lv. 50 she had a fun time in the dungeon…well as fun as it could be in that miserable dungeon…blessedly, they hadn’t run into [Bloody Mary] again.

It made her regret the fact that she’d neglected the [Skill] for years, she’d had it since she turned 16, yet she hadn’t really trained it since then, just content to let it rise on its own.

Full regret there, now tempered by the fact that Silver had just smacked her in the head with his wooden katana.

Verity glared at him as he shook out his stinging hands. Even if he hadn’t hit her that hard the [STR]-[CON] difference would hurt quite a bit.

She sunk lower in her stance and activated [Accelerate], one of her few support [Skills], and lunged at him like she’d been shot out of a bow.

She crossed the distance faster than he should be expecting, but he used that weird footwork technique to evade her grab with casual ease.

She’d lowered her [AGI] too much!

He put a blow into her side that would have gutted her instantly in a real fight if it wasn’t for her [CON], then with ethereal grace he slid out of her reach, forcing her to use [Accelerate] once more.

He tripped her! Since when could he crush her one sidedly like this? Sure, it had been a few weeks since they last sparred, but how could he change so much since then?

As she stood he took a few steps back to give her breathing room and assumed a ready stance once more.

Fine, if he wanted to play, she could play with him.

She tightened her right hand into a tight fist, then activated her signature [Skill]: [Windfist]. It was the only [Skill] she’d managed to evolve, the original being [Gusting Blow] which increased her attack speed using [Wind]. With the evolution, the wind didn’t just up the speed, but also caused damage as well.

In her left hand, she used the [Skills] [Precise Aim] and [Blade Lock]. She’d go for a sword grab, then hit him with the right hand. Since it was just a wooden sword she wouldn’t need to use [Iron Palm], which really helped her ration her rather meager MP. That [Skill] was such a drain…

Verity used [Accelerate] once more and crossed the distance to the waiting Silver. He once more used that odd footwork to slide out of the way, but she had a [Skill] up her sleeve he didn’t know about.

She quickly activated [Fulcrum] and used her right foot to pivot on the spot, channeling the momentum of her run to spin and grab his shoulder. Since it wasn’t his sword [Blade Lock] wasn’t as effective, but it still stunned him momentarily, enough for her to punch him in the gut with her [Windfist].

The surging gale rushed forward as the blow hit and blasted him back ten feet to roll to a stop on the ground.

For anyone else, Verity would have been worried, but for Silver there was no need to. He just spat out some blood, then rolled himself over and began to use [Treatment] on his damaged stomach and waited while Sister rushed over to assist.

Sister began to lecture him like she did every time she healed him, a big waste of time if Verity had any say in the matter, but the lecture only lasted as long as the healing, so it didn’t matter.

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Are you trying to die? What will you do if Mars or Verity forget to hold back one of these days? They could crush you like a goblin!”

Easier than a goblin, he had nothing to protect himself from someone with a [Blessing] aside from pure skill.

Pure skill that let him almost erase the most dangerous gang in Falst in less than two weeks if the rumors were true, but even the “most dangerous” gang in Falst wouldn’t have anyone over Lv.15, so they were small fry in the end. The only reason someone like the Guild Master, the King’s Arms, or Verity hadn’t stamped them out was their low threat level. They usually didn’t kill anyone either, so interceding felt pointless. It was similar to hunting cockroaches, in the neighbor’s house.

Silver hopped back to his feet and his eyes flashed as he grabbed his weapon and focused on her once more.

“Again?”

Verity casually reduced the [Stat Limiter] on her [AGI], being forced to use so many [Skills] against a small fry like Silver had been embarrassing, “Again.”

After a few hours of sparring Verity received news that made her curse: [Cliff] had been summoned to the Guild Master’s office while the rest of the guild was waiting with bated breath for news.

She lined up with Nayre and her other party members in front of Second Big’s desk and stared the bear-kin in the eyes as his gaze swept over the party.

His brother –Big- stood next to him and exuded a focus with enough intensity to almost rival Silver.

After a long moment, Second Big spoke, “We have investigated the dungeon, it is a Forest-Fortress type terrain with [Earth] and [Life] affinity monsters.” Second Big let out a slow breath, “It is Lv. 45.”

Verity’s expression mirrored Silver’s when he’d discussed what the [Level] of the Natural Dungeon would be with Sister. Did he have a spell or [Skill] that let him see the future or something?

Nayre grimaced next to her, “How bad does it look?”

Second Big heard two different questions hidden in that first one, they all did.

“Unfortunately, there are special rules in place. The first reduces the effectiveness of [Fire] type spells and [Skills] by half. The second increases the rate at which durability is consumed.

“While I didn’t see the boss, I feel comfortable in stating that I believe that you can complete this dungeon.”

Verity allowed a wry smile to cross her face. The special rules wouldn’t affect her, so their Attacker would be completely uninhibited. The biggest issue arose with their mage.

He wasn’t [Fire] focused, but all of his most damaging and effective spells were. Not only that, but Nayre’s vicious combo of [Burning Shield] and [Shield Call] would be negated.

It would be tough, but not impossible for them. The biggest worry would be durability.

The advantage they held would be when they faced [Earth] type enemies since Verity’s [Windfist] would be a hard counter to them. The rest of her teammates would be in trouble since [Earth] based enemies were usually rough on durability, which explained the second rule.

The real big issue arose with the [Life] affinity enemies. Which meant that they were plant based. Since [Fire] was their hard counter that meant both of the special rules were in place to make this dungeon a hell for anyone who tried to conquer it.

The only sign of hope in the end was the fact that Natural Dungeons didn’t have reborn enemies. When they formed, the monsters that were in it were the monsters it had. The only exception being in races that could reproduce, but that wouldn’t be an issue for them: [Earth] types usually couldn’t and [Life] types were usually too slow to affect anything.

“Usually” being the key word. You could never be sure with a Natural Dungeon.

Second Big cleared his throat with a sad expression, “We didn’t receive an alert saying we were the first to enter the dungeon, and we were attacked immediately after we entered.”

Sorrow crossed the expressions of Verity and everyone else in the room, there had already been a life or lives lost to this Natural Dungeon…

Nayre took a deep breath and spoke, “H-how was it? Can you help us with this one?”

Both Bigs shook their heads with grim expressions, and Big responded, “The Overlevel Penalty stopped us completely. Short term, it wouldn’t be too bad, but we won’t be able to help you.”

Nayre cut in, looking horrified, “There are special rules on the Overlevel Penalty too?”

Big nodded, “Yeah, nasty ones. We take double damage from [Earth] and [Life] attacks, are more weak to [Debuffs], all [Skills] cost double, this is in addition to the usual Penalty, and we will be under the same rules as you. Quite frankly, we’d be more of a hindrance than a help.”

Verity bit her lip as Nayre backed down. Most people would refuse to ever suffer a Overlevel Penalty, so the fact that both Bigs had been willing to give it a try before discovering the extra penalties was more than generous.

She gave them almost enough respect to call them by their actual names, but decided that they hadn’t quite reached that point.

Silver had long reached that point, she just kept calling him that because it was more fun this way.

Second Big spoke, “If there’s any good news here, it’s that the dungeon won’t break open for 6 weeks.”

Well that, at least, was a good piece of news. They wouldn’t be forced to push for the center, they could just chip their way in bit by bit until all the enemies but the boss were dead, then face it fully prepared. It made sense why Second Big thought their chances of beating it were pretty good, the final issue just came in the form of the boss itself.

Second Big continued his speech, “I invoke then, The God of Truth to witness this agreement, this contract. As the Adventurer’s Guild: Guild Master, I have also been requested to extend this offer not just on behalf of the guild, but on behalf of the Kingdom of Alda as well: in exchange for the [Black Gold] rank party: [Cliff] completing the dungeon known as [Nature’s Retaliation], we will be offering 40,000 Royals up front to help assist in preparation. Out of consideration for the second rule of this Natural Dungeon, we will also be offering free repairs for all of your equipment.” Second Big paused to look them all in the eyes one by one, “The reward for completing this request is a weapon from the Royal Treasury for each of you, and 100,000 Royals for your whole party. Please, live up to our expectations.”

——

Verity stood in front of the black mist that coalesced in front of her. It was thick, not allowing her sight to pierce more than an inch or two into it and the whole of it was formed into an intimidating wall.

She really was happy beyond all belief that the dungeon had been found as early as it had been, but as she stared at the wall of mist she was forced to combat dread and confusion.

Dread, because she’d never entered a Natural dungeon before, the Godmade ones had the mist too, but it was white in color, so this mist stood as a stark and clear contrast. From step one, it was clear she was in over her head.

What made her confused was that she didn’t know how anyone had found the dungeon. They’d entered a cave in the mountain, passed through a near labyrinth of tunnels, and at the end of it they’d found the wall of mist.

Well, it didn’t matter how it was found, the fortunate thing was that it had been, and they had plenty of time to clear it. Well, plenty for a Natural Dungeon. Usually, her party liked to spend plenty of time [Leveling] before they rushed the boss, taking months or years to do so, but with the lack of rebirth, it should be possible for them to push straight to the end within the time limit.

She glance at her teammates to see how they were doing.

Nayre was doing as well as could be expected, he was nervously polishing his new shield. They’d bought it using the preparation money and a generous donation since his old shield was forged and enchanted to support his [Burning Shield] [Skill], and they all agreed it was best to outfit the Defense to prevent the front line from crumbling. Their weapons were good enough, but if Nayre’s shield broke then it would be over for them.

Looking at Specs, well, he seemed fine. He was just panicking while counting the number of Healing and Mana Potions they had. Normal enough for him in the situation.

What worried her was the twins, they were both human, male and female, but they had the dark skin that the people of the southern desert had. Crook and Survival were whispering to each other in low tones and…ah, nope. She didn’t see that. That was disgusting.

Baggage was doing fine, he seemed to be doing the best of the group. He was just quietly meditating.

Verity took a deep breath and checked her gauntlets once more. The left one gave her a bit more freedom to perform grabs and the right one was better suited to punching. It was a weakness in her fighting style: she was entirely reliant on her hands.

To her chagrin, she remembered a lecture Silver had given her. It was along the lines of “you’re a [Martial Artist], yet you don’t use your legs in a fight!” He’d then proceeded to lecture her on learning ALL aspects of her [Class] to best grow her strength. The cocky boy didn’t even have a [Blessing] but he was telling her how to use hers…shockingly, she felt regret for not listening. For some weird reason, Silver always seemed to know what he was talking about. He had also been the one to help them the most so far, so his words had extra weight in her mind.

Well, her regret was something she’d act on later, experimenting in a Natural Dungeon with a new fighting style was a good way to get herself killed.

Her preparation finished, she waited as one by one the other members of the group stood beside her in front of the Dungeon Mist. After everyone had silently arrived there, Nayre spoke, “Ready?”

The group nodded, silence felt necessary for the moment.

“Let’s begin the raid.”

As planned earlier, Nayre and Verity stepped in first with Crook following a few seconds later, last were Specs and Survival.

As she passed through the mist she didn’t feel the usual warmth from it, but a coldness that pierced her to the bone and seemed to cut her soul. Stepping out on the other side, she found mounds and mounds of bodies: Treants.

It looked like Big had been understating when he’d said that he and Second Big had been attacked. There had to be well over 40 bodies strewn about, none of the materials had been collected either.

A moment later, she got an alert:

—————-

Entered: [Nature’s Retaliation]

Level: 45

Type: [Life]/[Earth]

Break: 1003 hours, 20 Minutes, 38 Seconds

Rules:

1: Decreased effectiveness and increased cost of [Fire] affinity [Spells] and [Skills] by 50%.

2: Increased Durability Consumption.

3: Only one party at a time may challenge [Nature’s Retaliation]

Good Luck brave ones, protect the people from nature’s retaliation.

——————

Verity gave a hollow chuckle. The Bigs hadn’t mentioned the third rule – not that it was an important one. No parties strong enough to clear the dungeon would dare come close.

There had been an incident in the past where a Natural Dungeon appeared and a call of help had been sent out. The thing was that the people who requested help lied out of desperation about how much time they had until the Dungeon broke, so when the parties arrived on the scene it was just in time to be massacred.

Since then, the trust hasn’t existed that would get anyone to travel to an area where there was a known Natural Dungeon, not until it was definitively clear or broken.

It had kinda become “this is your problem until it becomes a danger to me, then it’s our problem.”

It was a troublesome attitude in times like these, but Verity couldn’t blame them. Fear of the unknown was normal, but a glimpse of known threat but remained mostly unclear was even more so.

Breaking her out of her reverie, Nayre said, “Amos, go scout ahead, we’re gonna do this Attack and Retreat style, I don’t want to lose any of you to this dungeon, so there can’t be any mistakes.”

Crook responded, “On it boss.”

He then slipped off like a shadow into the surrounding forest.

Currently, they were on a low hill with the Dungeon Mist occupying the zenith, the hill itself was clear, but there were trees surrounding it on all sides, and from their raised position Verity could see a fortress off in the distance.

It was a fairly squat thing, seeming to only have one floor, but the single floor was far too tall for a regular building, stretched to be three stories in height with a giant stone dome in the center. For all that it didn’t go up, it certainly sprawled out.

It lacked any windows and the whole thing was made of a tightly fitted bland grey stone. Final thought: nothing about it was appealing to her.

Specs next to her spoke, “Well, looks like we don’t have to guess where the boss is.”

Verity nodded at him, “Yeah, but we won’t be going there for a while. Better to clear out everything in the surrounding forest before heading in, we don’t want to be surrounded. The mini boss will probably be somewhere out here too.”

Specs snorted, “You don’t have to tell me, help me tell Nayre we need to be thorough before we head for the center.”

She nodded once more, and they waited with some amount of trepidation as Crook slipped out of the brush and approached them.

“I have good news and I have bad news.”

Nayre responded, “Let’s hear the bad news first.”

“There’s more than just Treants.”

Grimacing, he asked, “What else?”

Crook shrugged, “What do you expect? I saw Aulrine, Wood Golems, Weeping Willows, and Forest Nymphs.”

“By the [Blessing]…this is going to be a tough one.”

Crook seemed to have fallen into a state of either denial or apathy as he responded, “Yeah, those Aulrine and Forest Nymphs will kill us for sure.”

Nayre flashed a fake cocky grin, “We’ll manage, what’s the good news?”

“They aren’t too clumped together, the Aulrine and Forest Nymphs especially are solitary.”

Verity spoke then, “Well, at least there’s a good side to this. Don’t forget, we can leave to prepare for the Aulrine and Wood Nymphs, we just need to focus on the others first. The Treants won’t be too much of an issue, but we should probably hunt the Weeping Willows first, no need to wander into their territory unexpectedly.”

Nayre nodded, “Agreed. Amos, lead us to our prey.”

Crook led them through the forest. While he was silent as he moved, the rest of them made enough noise to rival a Minotaur in a glassware shop.

Verity shook her head in amusement. The only person she’d seen move as quietly as Crook was Silver, he had this habit of walking without letting his shoes make too much noise, but she wasn’t sure how he did it.

After a winding route, that had them freeze in place for a moment as a Wood Golem passed by, they reached a clearing with a tree in the center.

The tree itself had extremely long and flexible branches that hung low, near the ground. The leaves on it were of a melancholy blue, and on the trunk they could see a face that had a constant stream of tears pouring from its eyes.

It hadn’t noticed them, or pretended so, as they did a quick planning session.

After it was over, Verity, Nayre, and Crook surrounded the tree from three different sides, and began to move forward in unison, step by step until the expression of the tree suddenly turned malevolent and the low hanging branches suddenly rushed the three of them.

Verity lost track of what the other two were doing as she watched the spearing branches rush toward her.

Contrary to the thought she’d had earlier, she would be trying out a few new tricks in the dungeon. Silver had given her a few ideas after seeing her [Skills] in action during their sparring match the day before and the moment seemed like a good idea to try them out.

Verity activated [Accelerate] and lunged to the side, barely making it a step and a half to the side –just outside the targeted range of the branches- before using [Fulcrum] to pivot on her left foot. She also activated [Windfist] and used the momentum from the spin generated by [Fulcrum] to slam the blow into the overextended branches which completely shredded them. The force of it was easily beyond the strength of her usual blows, making it almost like she had 250 [STR] instead of almost 200.

With so many of its branches suddenly destroyed, the Weeping Willow abruptly turned the greater portion of its attention to her. She’d pulled too much of its focus!

Once more activating [Accelerate], she launched herself backwards and right out of its range.

That didn’t stop it from trying to reach her as it lashed out repeatedly at the ground right at the edge of its range, which allowed Specs a clear line directly to its face, and he sent [Wind Blades] crashing into it over and over again. He’d gotten the spell to Lv. 10, so the cool down time for each of the castings was low enough for him to repeatedly cast it in a short amount of time.

Speaking of cool-down, Verity checked her charges on [Accelerate], it had three charges, i.e. three instant uses, but after those first three the cost to use it increased an insane amount. With time, the charges would come back, but she was still a decent 15 seconds from getting a second one.

That was really unfortunate since she could see a few Treants trundling their way.

Using her final charge of [Accelerate], she rushed over to Specs, Baggage, and Survival while her party members slammed the last few blows into the Weeping Willow, killing it.

Glancing, she saw that [Windfist] still wasn’t ready to be used again, so she used [Palm Strike] on the Treant that tried to attack Specs while he was distracted.

The thing formed a “V” as her palm dug into the center of its body, right where the stomach would be for a person, and sent it flying back a bit.

It was still alive, but the Treants weren’t strong enough individually to pose a threat to their party, the issue was that they moved in groups.

They were extraordinarily tall with the proportions of dwarves, made entirely of wood and bark with only four fingers, lacking a thumb, and with very roughly formed physical features. Features that no longer mattered after what happened next.

A [Wind Blade] from Specs slammed into its neck and took care of what HP it had left from her initial attack.

Verity glanced at the other Treants that were approaching her and cracked her knuckles in response, time to get to work.

——

Over the course of the next few weeks [Cliff] came up with a few different strategies to deal with the various monsters in [Nature’s Retaliation].

Moving deftly, they cleared out the Weeping Willows without too much of an issue, but every time they killed one they had to deal with a wave of Treants coming for them.

The Treants didn’t need a strategy, just making sure they were constantly giving a bit of ground during a fight prevented them from being surrounded, which allowed them to easily dispatch the Treants.

For Aulrine, they were much easier than expected due to an idea Silver had given them from his research. Aulrine were flower monsters, roughly the size of a human, and stationary. They were constantly letting off scents and smells to lure their prey in where they drained them of their life.

Aside from the obvious advice of “cover your nose” from Silver, he’d also suggested that they let one of the group pretend to fall for it and send Crook around behind the Aulrine to poison it with a thrown dagger.

The biggest help Silver had given there was with what kind of poison to use, he’d suggested [Rotted Sap] which they could actually get from the Weeping Willows.

While Silver hadn’t been any help for the Forest Golems –no help needed anyway- he had been very helpful for the Forest Nymphs.

The Forest Nymphs were humanoid with green skin, eyes, and hair. They had the ability to freely hide themselves in trees and were extremely stealthy.

The usual strategy was to burn the trees they hid in, but with Rule 1 in place Specs couldn’t cast [Fire] spells strong enough to do the job, so Silver had suggested that they use Aulrine pollen to get the Forest Nymphs to lower their guards, then have Verity grab them, Nayre hit them with a “Aggro” –whatever that meant- [Skill], or Crook hit them with a [Rotted Sap] coated knife.

It was unfortunate how their debt to Silver was growing so fast. He had been a major help at every step and that was all despite the fact that he never set foot in the dungeon or directly touched their equipment.

After they finally cleared out the Forest Nymphs, they turned their attention to cleaning up the Treants. It was a fairly easy process, but they’d been forced to retreat on several occasions to prevent any loss of life.

With everything else out of they way, they felt safe to engage the 10 Forest Golems that were around.

Each Forest Golem was about as tall as five Verities, strong, tanky, and slow. Killing a single one wasn’t difficult, but it was a process that took them four hours to pull off.

Verity ended up gaining a level in her [Martial Artist] and [Berserker] [Classes] during the process which made her very happy.

The added [STR] each [Class] gave her were well appreciated as they were able to cut the time for the second Forest Golem down by a quarter of an hour.

They took a day for each Golem, making sure to rest after every encounter to keep themselves at their peak and their [Fatigue] low.

Finally, the forest was cleared, and the whole team had Leveled at least once, putting them in a much better position than before.

Verity had turned off the notifications for her [Skills], but she was excited to take a look when she had more time. She was certain that she’d finally gotten another Level in [Windfist] and the long-stagnant [Fulcrum], and was overjoyed to see that [Accelerate] had a slightly shorter cool down.

After a day of rest to prepare, they stepped into the fortress at the center of [Nature’s Retaliation].

Like she’d noticed four weeks ago, the fortress only had one floor, but had a vaulted ceiling. The floor itself was bare and there were no decorations or anything, but the enemies were obvious. Lining the walls, evenly spaced, were statues. There were a few consistent types and they all stood at attention, pretending to be the dead stone that they looked like, but certainly weren’t.

Glancing at her party members, she was happy to see that everyone else was glaring at the statues and seemed to have understood what they were.

So they were in the [Earth] portion of the place then? Great, the durability on their weapons would plummet. It hadn’t been too big of an issue up to the current point, but it was clear that they would be feeling how much that second rule hurt in a moment.

Taking a deep breath, Nayre led the group forward into the room, only for the door to slam shut behind them.

An unnatural and spine cracking laugh echoed around them, completely inhuman and terrifying in a primal way.

For herself, Verity had frozen with a surging sense of terror the second the doors closed, but the laugh was almost enough to drive her mad from the fear. Everything, her hands, her eyes, her feet, her stomach, her long ears, they all trembled with a fear that seemed directed at her sanity.

A second later, a notification appeared in front of her. It was the same one she’d seen when she first entered [Nature’s Retaliation], but there was one difference: it focused on Rule 3:

====

3: Only one party at a time may challenge [Nature’s Retaliation]

====

The words wavered and blinked for a second, before reading thus:

====

3: Only one party can challenge [Nature’s Retaliation] at a time. Their challenge must fail or succeed before another may enter.

====

The rule was clear: finish or die.

It would definitely push them toward “die.” They were locked in a building full of [Earth] type enemies in a dungeon where durability was consumed faster, it was meant to be a death trap.

Silver’s eyes flashed in her mind, and she cursed herself for her weakness, he would never let fear swallow him like this. They knew going in that they could die, it was obvious. Suddenly, she became more scared because it seemed like the danger changed? No, it had remained the same the entire time. After all, anything could happen in a Natural Dungeon and happen it did – only their dropped guards could be blamed.

Verity turned to Nayre who was frozen in fear and slapped him, hard. It served as a wake up call and helped him focus on her.

“Can I have control?”

“Yes.”

Verity turned to Specs slapped him then spoke, “You and I will take care of all the small fry here. We need to conserve our durability as much as possible. That means just us, the rest of you will stay a step back and keep yourselves ready for the boss. We’re all going home heroes today, got that?”

She got a bunch of jerky nods from the group of of usually hardened professionals, then got to work.

She was forced to remove her gauntlets, but she could function without them anyway. Better to save them for the Boss.

Verity had Specs use [Wind Bullets] to pull the statues one by one to the center of the space outside of the other’s attention range, and engaged them one by one in single combat where she emerged victorious each and every single time with some minor help from Survival. She was forced to wait a bit between each encounter to recharge her MP so that she could use [Windfist], but it was worth it to survive each encounter.

They continued to use the same strategy for every room, every hallway, and every courtyard until the reached a pair of great doors.

They took a vote, and left the doors behind, choosing instead to hunt the remaining statues, no need to risk the boss calling on them during the fight. Once every enemy was dead, all with the exception of the boss, they stood in front of the door, ready to enter. They chose to wait till the next day and slept on the cold ground before returning to the door first thing in the morning.

Verity placed her gauntlets back on her arms and the rest of her party armed themselves once more. It was time to finish or die.