Earth

Algonquin Park Dungeon, Ontario

August 17, 2019

09:23 EDT

Ben shrugged when I looked over to him. “It’s a common boss when dealing with skeletons.”

“Well, we’re going to have to come up with something to deal with them,” I said, turning my attention back to the four bosses.

“It should be a lot easier with you in your dragonkin form, or your Seotross form, for that matter. You should be free to shift into either of those forms now that we’re alone,” Anja said.

“True. If I switch to my Seotross form, then I can probably deal with the warrior and archer quickly, but that would just allow the priest to resurrect them. Any way we do this the priest needs to die first.”

“I can help with that. My fire elemental can probably keep the warrior or the archer busy, but we’ll need someone to deal with the mage. It’s a fire mage, so unfortunately I can’t do much. I can throw some Chaos Bolts its way to drain its mana, but that’s about it.”

“Nah, I want you to help with the priest. Mace, you think you can deal with the mage while the rest of us deal with the priest?”

“As long as it doesn’t levitate out of range, definitely,” he answered. “What about the archer though? It's going to be peppering us with arrows.”

“Let it,” I said, turning around. “Ladies, make sure you keep an eye on it if it focuses on either of you. Anja, you can probably keep one of the other skeletons between you and the archer, while you’ll have to be more proactive, Sonja.”

Sonja nodded. “Would have been nice if all of us had acquired Mana Shield. I think I can handle it, though.”

“Okay, lemme shift to my Seotross form and then we’ll get going.”

Everyone readied themselves while I shifted, and I did the same as soon as the process was done. Unfortunately the larger versions of my collapsible weapons weren’t ready, so I had to make due with the crystalline versions Abi made up for me. I didn’t bother with the shields, instead opting to go with four swords which would allow me to deal the maximum amount of damage. Besides, Mana Shield would keep me safe enough, even with my Intellect being significantly lowered in this form.

[Ready to go?] I asked.

[Hell yeah,] Mason said. [Sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get started on the next dungeon.]

I chuckled, which sounded odd in this form. [Alright, let’s get going. Start summoning your fire elemental, Ben. When it’s almost done, we’ll go in.]

[Alright. It takes around thirty seconds to cast.]

I hadn’t seen him cast it the first time, so I was curious to see how it went. It seemed much more elaborate than Raise Skeletal Warrior, with the end of his staff glowing red and a small ember appearing in his other hand. I could see him saying something, but it was too quiet to make out. As the seconds went by, the ember steadily grew until it was nearly the same size as the elemental we had seen earlier.

[Go!] he said as his staff grew brighter.

I didn’t wait to see the end, instead turning around and running toward the Skeletal Priest. My long strides got me within range to use Blink very quickly, and I appeared behind the priest. It was a half a second too late, however. I immediately swung with two of my swords, but they connected with a shimmering white barrier instead of the priest itself.

The priest’s staff glowed a few times, but I didn’t pay attention to it. I continued my assault, alternating attacks whenever I estimated they were off cooldown, while getting some help from the twins. I could see Mason fighting the Skeletal Mage, which had erected its own barrier to keep itself safe. Suddenly the room got a bit darker.

[Umm, guys? My fire elemental just disappeared!]

[What?! How?!] I sent.

[I think it was banished! The warrior wasn’t dealing any damage to it, but it was keeping it busy. Now it’s going after Sonja!]

True enough, I looked over and saw the mounted warrior galloping towards her, quickly closing the distance.

[Don’t worry about me!] she sent as she shot an arrow at the horse’s feet and then turned into lightning immediately after. She appeared far away from the warrior and continued firing off arrows at the priest, all while the warrior was held in place by Tethering Shot.

I really thought the priest’s barrier would have dropped by now, but it was taking strike after strike without any issue. There were arrows, ice shards, fireballs and chaos bolts regularly contacting the barrier, along with my rapid sword strikes, but it still held strong. Any other creature we had come across would’ve run out of mana ten times over by now.

The priest’s staff continued to glow briefly every ten seconds or so, and I just knew that it had something to do with the shield still being active. None of the other bosses were hurt, so I knew it couldn’t be healing them, and nor was it doing any damage to with those casts. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what it was doing, and it popped into my head a moment later.

I immediately used Blink to appear beside the archer who was firing off arrows without a care in the world. I dropped one of my swords and used my free hand to pick up the archer and launch it at a nearby wall. It impacted a moment later, and the bones that made up its body went flying in all directions. With it out of the fight for the moment, I used Blink to appear beside the skeletal warrior and did the same thing.

I didn’t stand around to watch this time, Blinking over and picking up my sword before Blinking again and appearing beside the mage to help Mason. It’s shield fell after nearly ten seconds of our combined assault, allowing us to quickly dispatch it. I turned back to the priest and saw that it’s staff was glowing constantly now, so I ran over and rejoined the attack with Mason right behind me.

With the five of us peppering it, its shield fell before it could finish its cast, and I swung two of my swords down in an overhead chop. The dual strike neatly bisected it and cleaved through the horse below it as well. I thought we had killed it before its cast had gone off, but an arrow flew past me, impacting Ben’s Mana Shield while a fireball impacted Mason’s.

The warrior had been resurrected, and was nearly upon us when I turned around. I Blinked forward a few feet and waited for it to get close. It was running right at me, its sword at the ready, but I calmly sidestepped its charge and cleaved through it’s steed’s legs, sending crashing to the floor.

Knowing my friends could handle it, I closed the distance and quickly dealt with the archer, making sure to use Siphoning Strike to increase its damage before turning towards the mage. It’s shield was back up, but it fell a few seconds after Mason turned his attention to it. I Blinked to help them out, but Sonja finished it off with an arrow before my attack connected.

There was a flash behind us which caused us to turn, seeing that a chest had appeared in the center of the room.

[So what was up with that priest?] Anja asked. [You disappear and then reappear shortly after and the shield finally falls?]

[Did you notice how its staff glowed briefly every once in a while?] I asked her.

She nodded.

[I’m pretty sure it was siphoning mana from its allies, allowing it to keep its shield active. It’s counter-intuitive, isn’t it? On the previous levels we always killed the priests first to prevent them from resurrecting their allies. Here, it was the opposite. The warrior and archer were weak defensively, so I dealt with them before helping Mason with the mage. It’s shield was pretty low already, so it only took a few seconds to kill it. When its allies were all dead, it began resurrecting them, which meant that it wasn’t able to siphon any mana to protect itself. Apparently we weren’t fast enough, because it barely got it’s spell off before we killed it.]

[I can’t believe I didn’t think about that,] Ben said, shaking his head. [I’ve read stuff about boss fights like this where teams often get baited into attacking the wrong targets.]

[Well, I don’t know what level Victorious Secret is, but I suggest messaging them and letting them know whats in store for them here. They might be better off waiting until their friend can join them to tackle this boss.]

[I don’t see any stairs leading down to the eleventh level, so we can probably let them know without messaging them,] Anja sent. [It’s probably similar to Jihm where the path to the next floor is opened after the boss is killed.]

[Alright, let me shift back into my human form and then we’ll sort out the loot before heading out to talk to them.]

We all walked over to the chest before I started shifting back, while Mason went ahead and opened up the chest. A sack appeared in his hand and he began grabbing handfuls of Mana Crystal Shards, dropping them into it before putting it away and taking out another sack. He grabbed a few Mana Gems and a Mana Crystal, depositing them as well.

I walked over to the chest just as Mason stood back up. He turned to me holding two Skill Gems in his palm, one Tier C and the other Tier D. Handing them to me, he bent down and came out with the first of two pieces of equipment in the chest. It was a cuirass made out of some sort of leather, but didn’t look like it was anything special. He passed it over to me and I could see that it was an uncommon item, just like my bracers and boots.

Lesser Enchanted Leather Cuirass

Uncommon

+12 Strength

+12 Agility

+10 bonus Strength or Agility, whichever is highest.

I realized that everyone besides Ben would be able to make good use of this chest piece, though it would be better for one person, in particular. I turned towards Anja and handed it to her.

“A few of us could make use of this, but you’re in the most need of it right now. Anyone have any objections to her getting it?” I asked.

“Fine with me,” Mason said.

Anja put a hand on it so she could get an idea of what the stats were and she immediately objected to getting it. “Sonja can get just as much use out of it as I can, if not more considering she occasionally uses Windblade. Why do you want to give it to me?”

“Two reasons,” I said with a smile. “The first is that you’re clearly the weakest of us, for now, at least. The second reason is the item that is still in the chest. You wanna grab it, Mace?”

“Sure,” he replied, bending down and standing back up a moment later, a recurve bow in his hand. It was made out of bone, and looked quite menacing. There was a skull with glowing red eyes which would protect the hand while the bowstring seemed to be made out of sinew. It looked like it would make for a decent blunt weapon as well, if someone got close to her.

Anja had grabbed onto the chest piece when she saw the bow, allowing me to receive the bow from Mason and hand it over to Sonja. It also gave me some time to see the stats on it as well.

Soulstring

Epic

20 Weapon Damage

+15 Agility

+6 Constitution

+6 Endurance

10% increased Agility from all sources. Stacks multiplicatively with other effects.

Reduces the cooldown of all ranged physical abilities by 20%.

I didn’t react to the stats, I just held it out for Sonja. She hesitated while looking it over, but eventually grabbed it. She did react, her eyes growing wider and her jaw dropping. She recovered a moment later.

“Wow! That is one massive upgrade,” she said with a smile. “We’ve been quite lucky in this dungeon, haven’t we? Two epics in as many bosses?”

“Yup,” Ben said from behind me. “Epic items drop from bosses with a one in twenty chance, while legendaries are one in ten thousand and mythical items are one in a million.”

“You said those are the boss drop rates, meaning that they can drop from other sources as well. What are the chances of getting an epic from a regular enemy?” I asked.

“Multiply the boss chances by about one hundred and that will give you the rough odds for the rest of the enemies. No one knows the exact odds, as it’s easier to count boss kills than regular kills. It’s around one in two thousand for an epic, one in a million for a legendary, and then one in a hundred million for a mythical item.”

“Rough odds.”

Ben nodded. “There have been a handful of people who have gotten incredibly lucky over the millennia. The stats on legendary and mythical items can vary greatly, so a low level adventurer could get an item that would be very good for someone who is level five hundred, before any special bonuses that item provides. The opposite is also true, and a high level adventurer could get an item with very poor stats.”

“Well, we’ve probably got a long way to go before we find a legendary or mythical item, barring some ridiculous luck,” I said, walking towards the large doors. “We should probably get moving, though. Sooner we let the other team know what to expect, the sooner we can move on.”

“You know, there is a way to increase our odds at getting a legendary, but it’s very difficult to do so,” Ben said, jogging to catch up with me. “There is a perk called Luck that increases the odds of epics, legendaries and mythical items dropping. The problem is that it is a very rare perk, and if one person in a group has it, then the effect is averaged over the entire group, lowering the effectiveness. We would all need to have one, and even then, the odds would only be increased slightly with the Tier E version.”

“How much are we talking?” Mason asked from behind us.

“I believe Tier E is a twenty percent increase to the regular drop rate. So for epic items, it changes from one in twenty to one in seventeen, legendaries become one in eight thousand three hundred thirty four, and mythical items it becomes one in eight hundred thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty-four. Each rank increases the odds by another twenty percent to the base value, except for Tier S which increases it by two hundred percent. Epic becomes one in five, legendary one in twenty-five hundred, and mythical is two hundred fifty thousand.”

Mason whistled at those numbers. “Hey, you’re rich, right, Jonathan? How about buying each of us the Tier S version of that perk?”

Ben burst out laughing. “Even if there were any Tier S Luck perks being sold, they would probably cost hundreds of millions of credits for one, if not over a billion. I meant it when I said that they are rare. Even a Tier E version runs for a few million credits, and they’re usually snapped up immediately.”

I didn’t answer Mason because I couldn’t. While my mom told me that my sisters and I inherited money from our parents, I still hadn’t checked how much was in the account. It did have over fourteen hundred years to accrue interest, however, so I was sure there was a lot in there. Besides, I probably wouldn’t want to spend hundreds of millions of credits, if not more, on a couple of perks.

We arrived at the door so I turned the handles and swung the double doors open. The members of Victorious Secret were sitting up against one of the walls while they waited, but all quickly stood up when they heard the door open.

“We were wondering what was taking so long. How’d it go?” Kaya asked.

“Took us a while to figure things out, but we did, eventually. What level are the four of you?”

“Sixteen, why?”

“The fight is a pretty difficult one. You didn’t see since it was so dark, but it’s actually four bosses in there, and you need to fight all of them at the same time. There is a warrior, archer, mage and priest, all mounted on Skeletal Horses--”

“Four Horsemen, really?” Astrid asked.

I chuckled. “That’s what I said. The tricky thing about the fight for us was that on the previous floors we had focused on killing the priests first so they couldn’t resurrect their allies. For the boss fight, you need to do the opposite. The priest is actually able to siphon mana from its’ allies, which makes it pretty much invulnerable. You need to kill the other three and then focus down the priest before it can resurrect them, or you’ll have to do it all over again. We actually killed the priest, but only milliseconds after it had resurrected the others. It didn’t have enough mana to put its shield up, otherwise we would’ve had to kill the other three again before focusing it down. As it was, we just had to clean up the other three after the priest was dealt with.”

“That does sound hard,” Kaya said with a thoughtful expression. “Maybe you don’t need to kill all three, though? If the mana siphon you were talking about is a spell that is cast, then maybe all it takes is killing one of the skeletons to get it to start resurrecting it. If we all turn our attention to it after we kill the first skeleton, then maybe we can kill the priest before the cast is over.”

“Do we really want to risk it though?” Kendyll asked. “We’re without our healer, and it's not like we can run away once we engage the bosses. If we try it and it doesn’t work, then they’ll probably kill us before we kill them. Undead don’t get tired, we will.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Kaya asked. “We drove over two hours to get here this morning, and it would probably take just as long to get to another dungeon suitable for us. Even then it would only leave us with a few hours of leveling before we had to head back.”

“Where is the closest rank II dungeon, anyways?”

“Prince Edward, near Belleville,” Ben answered. “I was looking at dungeons, and it was between this one and the one there. This one was at a lower completion percentage, so it won out.”

Hailey nodded. “It was the same when we checked yesterday. This dungeon was at forty-six percent while the one just outside of Belleville was at thirty-three percent. It’s also right between Toronto and Kingston, so it probably gets a lot more adventurers than this one does. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was under twenty percent now.”

“Eighteen percent, actually. It says that we’re about two hours away, so we’d get there at around 13:00. That would give us a good amount of time to level before we need to head home. Vivienne is guaranteed to be free tomorrow, so maybe we come back here tomorrow and knock this out with a few more levels,” Kendyll said.

“We’d better be going then,” Kaya said before turning back towards my friends and I. “Thanks for letting us know what we’d be facing. Where are you guys off to?”

“Not far, actually. The closest rank III dungeon is in a forest just to the north-east of North Bay. Should only take us an hour or so to get there,” Ben answered.

“Ah, lucky. You will have quite a long drive back to Ottawa though, won’t you?”

“Not really. We have… alternate means of transportation,” I said, leading us towards the waygate that would take us to the surface.

“What does that mean?” Hailey asked from behind us.

“A friend of ours has Portal, so she can get us places like that,” I said with a snap of my fingers. “As long as she’s been there before, of course. If not then we’ll probably head back and get my car, and see if she can get us as close as she can.”

“That would be really handy,” Kaya replied as we stopped just short of the waygate.

I nodded and stepped onto it, appearing in the lobby. Everyone else followed soon after and we made our way to the parking lot.

“Give me a minute, alright?” I said taking my phone out and walking a short distance away. “I need to call her to see how long she’ll be.”

“Sure,” Kaya nodded as she led everyone over to one of the only other cars in the parking lot.

I made it seem like I was dialing a number and put my phone to my ear before sending. [Hey, Zaszi, we’re ready to head over to the next dungeon now. Have you been to the one just east of North Bay?]

[I can’t say I have. I have been to Sudbury, but that isn’t any closer than you currently are. How about I open up a portal so you can come back and get your vehicle, and then I’ll open another portal so you can drive back through.]

[Works for me, keep in mind that there is another group in the area. What should I call you? Zaszi isn’t exactly a common name.]

[Natalia is what I go by when I’m out in public. I’ll be there in a minute.]

[Alright, thanks.]

I put my phone away and walked over to the minivan where Kaya and her team were storing their equipment. They didn’t appear to have the amount of dimensional storage we had, so each of them dropped a small backpack along with their weapons in the trunk before moving to get inside. They all froze at the large popping sound, looking in the direction it came from. Standing there was Zaszi in more casual clothing than what she had been wearing when she opened the portal earlier.

“Ready to go, Jonathan?” she asked.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, looking at Kaya and her team, as well as my own.

Zaszi opened the portal and I stepped through with her right on my heels. We appeared in the parking lot where my new SUV was parked, and she directed me to get in and drive it over while she waited. I did as she asked, and as I got closer she started casting Portal. As the seconds went by, it got bigger and bigger until it was easily big enough to drive through. She waved me through and I wasted no time.

Moments later my SUV was in the middle of the parking lot, and saw the women of Victorious Secret walking over with my friends right behind them. The front passenger door opened and I was surprised to see Zaszi get in.

“What?” she asked when she saw me looking at her. “I figured I’d join the five of you so I would be able to open up a portal directly to the base, otherwise you would have another long drive ahead of you tonight.”

“Couldn’t the follow team have opened up a portal for us?”

She shook her head. “Those teams are instructed to remain hidden unless you are in danger. I can do this today because it’s my day off.”

“I appreciate it.”

There was a knock on my window, and looking over I could see that it was Kaya who had done so.

“That is so not fair!” she said after I lowered the window.

I smile and gestured over to Zaszi. “Kaya, meet Natalia, Natalia meet Kaya. She’s the leader of Victorious Secret, I think.”

“That’s right!” Kaya said with a smile. “Nice to meet you, Natalia!”

“Likewise,” Zaszi replied. “An interesting team name you’ve got there. I like it.”

“Thanks! We were happy to see that there weren’t any other teams with the name, which allowed us to register it. Jonathan, we talked about meeting up for dinner sometime soon. How does next weekend sound? Our treat.”

“If it was lunch on Friday that might be doable, otherwise it will need to wait, unfortunately. We’re leaving Friday night to go on a six week vacation. I’m not sure when we’re getting back, exactly, but it will be sometime during the first week of October.”

“I see. How about we plan for dinner on the second Friday of October, then?”

“That should be fine, I’m sure one of us will message you if it isn’t.”

“Perfect! Well, we’d better get going. We have a long drive ahead of us and want to get some lunch before we head in. Thanks again for earlier, and good luck!”

“You too!” I said before she turned and headed back to the minivan with her friends.

My friends hopped into the SUV, greeting Zaszi as they did, while I waited for Kaya and her team head out. I started up the SUV and began to follow them, but not before my friends reacted to the holographic display on the windshield.

“Something to tell us, Jonathan?” Ben asked. “I thought you’d be going to get your truck.”

“I traded it in,” I said with a laugh. “Nah, Tessa’s dad wasn’t comfortable with me driving around in my truck, so he gave this to me. Apparently he had a bunch of them made and they’re built stronger than a tank. It also has its perks, as you can see.”

“I wonder how long until we see more cars with holographic displays. It definitely beats looking down at the dash.”

“That it does. Tessa alluded to there being a bunch of features, but I haven’t checked it out yet.”

“Computer: set destination: Hillside Lake Dungeon,” Zaszi called out.

“Affirmative. Destination set: Hillside Lake Dungeon,” a disembodied voice said.

The right-most portion of the holographic display changed to show the most direct route to the dungeon we were going to next. In essence, it was a slightly more advanced GPS.”

“That’s kinda cool. What else does it have?” Ben asked.

I saw Zaszi spin around in her seat to look behind us before turning back around.

“Computer: lockdown.”

“Affirmative. Locking down the vehicle,” the computer answered.

As soon as the computer stopped speaking, thin sheets of some black material began covering all the windows. The holographic display changed once again, this time acting as a screen, showing me what was in front of me so I could actually keep driving. Once the material was in place over the windows, new holographic displays appeared on each window, allowing us to see all around us.

“Now that’s cool!” Ben said. “Is it really as strong as a tank?”

“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Zaszi said. “The armor can stop many different forms of weapons fire, but the shields are required to stop anything more than that. Computer: end lockdown.”

“Affirmative. Lockdown over,” the computer answered once more, the armor retracting back to wherever it is stored when not in use.

“How are the shields powered, anyways?” I asked.

“This doesn’t use a combustion engine or an engine that runs off of mana, either, for that matter. There is a small fusion power plant located where the engine normally would be, and that powers everything.”

“Why does it sound like a regular car?” Sonja asked.

“A sophisticated computer controls speakers located all around the vehicle. When Jonathan starts it, or hits the gas, the computer uses stored recordings to simulate the sounds a vehicle would usually make.”

Zaszi continued to go over the many features as I drove, and it turned out there were a lot of them. The most interesting one was something meant to prevent injury in case of an accident. Instead of the normal airbag, there was something Zaszi called a ‘Stasis Bubble’ that would activate, preventing all movement inside the vehicle. It was a massive power drain, so the fusion power plant could only keep it powered for about thirty seconds, but that would easily be long enough to prevent injury.

We stopped to get lunch before continuing, and arrived at the dungeon just under two hours after we left the dungeon in Algonquin Park. Zaszi opened up a portal and left until we needed her to get home, and my friends and I entered the building. We had to go through the evaluation again, but it took significantly less time than it had previously.

Entering the first floor, we made sure to toggle off our Insight perks so we could level up our abilities some more. I shifted into my dragonkin form before we started down the first corridor, and were surprised when we got to the first chamber. Up until now, the first five floors of a dungeon had animals local to the area as the monsters we had to kill. This time, however, we came across the first humanoids we had seen so far.

They were shorter than we were, looking to be about five feet tall, and with long tails and horns on their heads. They were pretty well muscled with digitigrade legs and were covered in reddish-brown scales. They didn’t carry any weapons, but they did have sharp claws and some nasty looking teeth in their alligator-like mouths.

[Kobolds.] Ben sent. [They’re a common low-level creature, though they can get quite strong depending on evolutions or mutations they have undergone.]

[Kobolds?] Mason asked. [I thought those were little rat-like creatures that were obsessed with candles.]

[These ones are what they actually look like. They’re distantly related to dragons, hence the appearance. The ones in the game you’re talking about are from German mythology, I think. They’re not real.]

[Any tips for fighting them?] I asked.

[They’re very fast, but not particularly strong at this level. Or smart. Don’t let them swarm you, though. They don’t appear to have any weapons, but they have strong jaws and sharp claws, so keep that in mind. It appears that these ones are just warriors, but we’ll likely see assassins, shamans and the like as we go deeper.]

[Alright. Make sure to let Mason, Sonja and I get the kills if you can help it. Let’s go.]

One of the kobolds raised its nose in the air as if detecting something before looking in our direction. It screeched before dropping to all fours and charging towards us. Many more kobolds came out of small alcoves at the cry of alarm before dropping to all fours and charging as well. They were as fast as advertised, but not as fast as Sonja with her new bow.

Three arrows impacted the closest kobold, knocking it backwards with each impact, while a fourth followed shortly thereafter, entering its left eye and finishing it off. That seemed to anger the other kobolds, who seemed to speed up, if that was possible. I swung my swords at one as it got close, but it easily dodged and continued past me. I couldn’t worry about that as there were other kobolds to deal with.

Mason used Whirling Leap, landing in the path of four of them. They leapt towards him, but met the blade of his halberd, having expected to knock him down where they could savage him. They went flying but soon got back up and continued their attack as if nothing happened.

My first few attacks connected with nothing but air, but soon I was able to figure out how they fought, and my attacks were beginning to connect. I was able to finish two off with Siphoning Strike, but an arrow finished off the third as I was bringing my sword down on it. I looked over to look at Sonja who had a cheeky little grin on her face, before getting back to work.

Over three minutes after we entered the chamber, we had finally dealt with all thirteen kobolds. While they weren’t very strong, they were as fast as advertised, making them hard to pin down. For anyone but Sonja, at least. Before they disappeared, I counted seven arrows sticking out of kobolds, all of them sticking out of a head or right where the heart likely was. I wasn’t sure how many kills Mason got, but it seemed like the first chamber was very successful when it came to leveling our abilities.

We continued on having cleared five more similarly-sized chambers of kobolds before arriving at the final chamber. There hadn’t been any traps to worry about since the first few floors usually look like a cave system, though that didn’t stop Ben from summoning a couple of skeletons to level up both of his abilities. Raise Skeletal Warrior had reached rank two, so he was now able to summon two Skeletal Warriors, or one Skeletal Warrior and one Skeletal Archer.

In the previous dungeons, the final room on every floor usually followed the same design, three groups of enemies followed by a floor boss sitting in the back. This time, there was a kobold holding a staff, with ten kobolds around him, so it seemed like we would be fighting everything at once, rather than in waves of enemies.

[I think that’s a Kobold Shaman,] Ben said. [You can think of them like Skeletal Priests, but they are more offensively oriented. They are able to heal their allies and buff them to increase their damage, but they can’t resurrect them, so we don’t have to worry about that, fortunately. Killing it will also immediately send the remaining kobolds into a frenzy, increasing their speed and damage further.]

[So we save it for last. What kind of damaging spells does it have?] I asked.

[I’m not entirely sure. I think they can call down lightning and cast something similar to a fireball, but we’ll have to wait and see.]

[Alright, how about using your new toys, especially since the Insight plan didn’t work. I wasn’t expecting there to be this many enemies, or get this much experience per kill. Are you sure the experience gain has turned off?]

[I’m sure. I did a search and enemies at level twenty give approximately sixty-two experience each. We were a level lower, so there was a slight increase, giving us sixty-eight experience per kill. If Legendary Insight was active, then we would have gotten three hundred forty experience per kill.]

[Okay, let’s get going. You wanna get us started,] I asked, looking between Ben and Mason.

They both nodded and walked just in front of the rest of the group. Ben started summoning his fire elemental, while Mason started summoning his earth elemental, having reached the one hundred Intellect requirement to be able to cast it. It was his first time casting it, but I saw that it was casted in much the same way Summon Fire Elemental was.

I couldn’t see their mouths, but I knew both of them would probably be chanting something under their breaths, while holding a hand out in front of them. A pebble appeared in Mason’s hand at the start of the cast, which steadily grew. After about ten seconds he bent down and placed the now boulder-sized rock on the ground while keeping his hand on it. It began to grow rapidly once it was on the ground, and by the time Mason was done with the cast, it stood over ten foot tall and stood on two legs.

After finishing the cast, Mason stood back up and the earth elemental began running forward, with the fire elemental gliding right behind it. The rest of us jogged behind them, content to let them be meatshields.

As was the norm, one of the kobolds saw us coming and alerted its allies with a screech before dropping to all fours and sprinting towards us. The Kobold Shaman immediately began casting something, the end of its staff glowing red before the other kobolds actually grew in size, if only slightly. A red aura also encompassed all of them, and they began running even quicker.

Most of the kobolds decided to go for Mason’s earth elemental first as it was the biggest target, while one kobold leapt at Ben’s fire elemental. It passed right through but it seemed to do very little damage. It’s scales were a little darker, but it got right back on its feet before three arrows penetrated its head, one right after the other.

I turned my attention back to the rest of the kobolds and saw that many of them were swarming the earth elemental, with at least four climbing all over it, holding on with one hand while they swiped with the claws on another, or, in one case, trying to bite the earth elementals head off. They weren’t too bright.

I saw the earth elemental itself do quite a bit of damage, actually crushing one kobold’s head in one of its large rock hands, before pulling another off its back and pulverizing it with both of its fists in an overhead strike. The Kobold Shaman wasn’t idle all this time, either casting some sort of healing spell or calling down lightning bolts at the two elementals, which didn’t have much of an effect.

I was idle, however, just watching to get an idea of the elementals’ strength. The fire elemental didn’t seem to be doing much, but I think that was because the kobolds’ scales provided some protection from fire. It wasn’t complete protection as there were some scorch marks, but it did some damage.

I also looked at Sonja who was to my right. She looked like she was having the time of her life, firing off arrow after arrow, dealing damage with most of them and finishing off kobolds when she could. Just watching her I got the sense that Mason wasn’t the strongest of us anymore. At least when I wasn’t in either my dragonkin or Seotross forms, and we were talking about single target damage, that is.

Within ninety seconds all the regular kobolds were dead, and only the Kobold Shaman remained, all without me raising my weapons once. Mason promptly closed the distance using Whirling Leap before going to town on it, finishing it off twenty seconds later. All the corpses started disappearing shortly after, and we all around picking up our spoils.

Mason and Ben stopped channeling mana into their elementals, with the fire elemental dispersing into nothing, while the earth elemental fell into a pile of boulders before disintegrating entirely. When they were both gone, we walked down the ramp to the next floor, making sure to activate the waygate on the way. Waygates activate by proximity, but this one was in its own little alcove that required us taking a tiny detour.

Once it was active, we continued down the passageway before coming up to something else which was new. Previously cave-like floors were pretty linear, but we came up to an intersection, giving us three different options.

[Hold on, I wanna try something,] I said, putting away my weapons and beginning the process of shifting into another form.

It took longer than it usually did, but that was probably because I was shifting from a large form to a comparatively tiny form. I looked up at Anja when I was done shifting, who stood back up immediately and looked away. I closed my eyes and began moving my tails, which allowed me to scan my surroundings. It was similar to echolocation, but my tails emitted some sort of energy which was able to move through solid objects, rather than bounce off. Still, it allowed me to get a decent idea of what to expect.

After a good thirty seconds or so, I was able to determine that the path to our left had twelve kobolds in the first chamber, while the path directly in front of us had fourteen. The path to our right didn’t turn up any results, with it just being a long tunnel. There may have been a chamber just beyond my range, but I wouldn’t be able to tell without us heading that way.

I relayed my findings to my friends, and we decided to head down the right path. I continued to scan as we walked and soon detected another large chamber ahead. Waiting in that chamber were twenty-one kobolds, including at least one shaman.

[Figures this would be the hardest tunnel,] Mason said. [Do we wanna go for it or turn back and choose one of the other ones?]

[Typically when you’re given options like this, there will be two long paths and one shorter one. It could just be this chamber before we reach the floor boss, whereas one of the other tunnels could have a bunch of chambers,] Ben answered. [I say we continue down this one. We haven’t had any issues so far.]

Everyone agreed so I shifted back to my dragonkin form and retrieved my weapons from my suit’s dimensional storage. We didn’t exactly have room to summon the elementals again, so we decided that I would lead the charge to draw the attention of the kobolds, and my friends would join in after.

I had barely entered the room when a kobold screeched, calling to its friends, but I continued running. I had opted to activate both of my shields rather than use my weapons, as our plan was for me to just tank them. My mana regeneration was more than good enough to keep Mana Shield up for quite a while, even with twenty-one kobolds beating on it.

I sent a few of them flying while running directly to the shaman and hitting it with a Shield Bash to stun it. Otherwise, I just stood there and tanked all the damage they were putting out while I waited.

[Now!] came the signal from Ben. I immediately used Blink to get away, just as meteors and arrows began to fall where I was previously standing. We knew that Meteor Shower probably wouldn’t do much damage to them, but it would at least knock them down long enough for Volley to do some damage. It would also allow Mason to do his own thing. He activated Mana Shield and then used Whirling Leap to actually appear in the exact spot I had Blinked away from, dealing a lot of damage to any kobold that was unfortunate enough to stand up. Volley was off cooldown by then, so Sonja used the ability again while Mason used every last ability he had that did damage in an area. Thirty seconds after we entered the room, all twenty-one kobolds were dead.

Earth

Spectre Base, Canadian Rockies

August 17, 2019

10:29 PDT (13:29 EDT)

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Gabriel laughed.

Alexandra, Gabriel, Tich, Selalea and Thomas were in a meeting, but they took a quick break for lunch. They opted to have it delivered rather than head to the cafeteria, so it gave them an opportunity to watch Jonathan and his friends as they fought their way through the dungeon.

“Indeed,” Selalea said. “It would have been an even more potent combination if Jonathan had been able to use his breath weapon. Perhaps I will see if Shaemu can teach him how to use his dragon abilities while we’re on our way to Mezotis.”

“Couldn’t you do it?” Alexandra asked.

“I could teach him how to use the abilities unique to Red dragons, but no more than that. Shaemu is a Chromatic dragon, and thus has the abilities of all seven other breeds of dragons. Since all your people that have scanned dragons have turned into the Chromatic variant, we believe that you will have every ability we possess.”

“I see. We’ve got a training schedule set for Jonathan, but I’ll see if I can move some things around to facilitate that, if she agrees to do it. There may be a few of us joining Jonathan if she can teach a group.”

“I don’t see any reason why she wouldn’t be able to, except that this is the first time we’ll be teaching non-dragons how to use our abilities. Sometimes our young have issues, but it is instinctual for all of us.”

“Is every member of the council joining us on our journey, or will some be staying here?” Gabriel asked.

“We will all be going so we can see our new homes, but Shaemu, Bonanem, Pharomna and Olmith will be staying. Shaemu because we can’t afford to lose her, or any of the other Chromatic dragons and dragonkin if something should happen, and Bonanem because he is simply a nuisance. Olmith will be going to keep Bonanem in line, and also because he is our chief architect. He’ll be working on building some sturdy chambers to keep our eggs safe, before working on building our first settlement above ground.”

“What about Pharomna? Why will she be remaining?”

“Ah. We could use her here, but she is an explorer at heart, and there are two massive worlds for her to explore,” Selalea said with a smile.

“Oh, looks like they chose right! They’ve arrived at the floor boss already. That’ll be ten credits, Gabe! Hand it over!” Thomas said with a grin on his face and his hand stretched out in front of him.