The well rested pair were currently in the process of shooting down another wave of bat’s in the large cavern they had so much trouble in yesterday. Not enough time had yet passed for all the monsters there to respawn so the fight was much easier then before, even without mentioning their drastically improved stats.

This time they hadn’t even bothered taking cover in the entranceway since they were much faster than before and could outrun the bats with ease, as long as they paid attention to any sneak attacks from behind. The fight was still taking a long time however as they were only using sword and spear this time, trying to conserve what remained of their arrows from yesterday.

Aiden was hoping to spend the morning clearing the dungeon of monsters and hopefully gaining another level before they tackled the boss room. He figured they could probably handle it now but better safe then sorry. They would both be putting all their free stats for the next few level in agility, wanting to keep their speed advantage over any monsters they encountered in the future.

It was very obvious after yesterdays massive stat gain, while they were clearing the rest of the dungeon that their increased speed was making most fights there almost a joke. They could easily dodge out of the way of any strikes coming their way and could attack and deal damage faster. Their reaction times seemed to be much improved as well, although Aiden wasn’t sure if that was from strictly agility or a combination of stats.

He figured that their increased reaction times were coming from a mix of agility, dexterity and skill, based on feeling and what he experienced before from raising those stats. The help menu didn’t mention anything about it so he wasn’t sure but that was his best guess.

They continued their monster killing for another two hours before they reached the boss room again, both earning another level. They allocated their free points to agility and decided that they were ready enough.

The room they found themselves in was a large grotto peppered with boulders and vegetation. There was a small stream running through the area being fed by a waterfall. The room was brightly lit up with sunlight streaming in and creating a rather picturesque scene. At least that would have been the case if not for the monstrosity sitting next to a boulder sunning itself.

It was a massive bear twice the size of the one they encounter on one of their previous scouting trips with the rest of the Guardians. The thing was huge and looked like it weighed over two tons. It had yet to notice them and Aiden took the opportunity to inspect it.

Dungeon Boss - Grizzly Terror: Rank (f)

lvl 30

Health 2300

stamina 400

Mana 80

Vitality - 230

Endurance - 40

Strength - 67

Agility - 39

Dexterity - 26

Skill - 19

Intelligence - 11

Wisdom - 8

The thing was a hard hitting tank, plain and simple. He was happy to notice that it was slower then them so a similar tactic that they used on the Arachne Queen would also probably work here, although getting hit by this thing was a cause for concern, especially if it bit in to him or pinned him down.

That strength was insane, it was higher than his and he could now make a small hole in the cave wall with a punch, which he tried out earlier this morning. If he was hit by this thing, broken bones and internal injuries were definitely on the menu.

Aiden sighed and tried to figure out a better strategy for this. They were already low on arrow's with only about 78 between them. Aiden quickly handed off the rest of his to Victoria. He would once again serve as the tank in this fight keeping the boss occupied while Victoria peppered it with arrows.

Each hit with the bow against this things considerable defense would be doing between 25-30 damage. So if Victoria hit all her shots the thing would be mostly out of health at that point, and he could then use frost wave and hack into the thing to bring it down. That was however the best case scenario.

They could use the same tactic here as they had before and shoot flaming arrow’s, but Aiden didn’t want to waste the oil they had for fear of needing it later, but he guessed they could spare a few maybe even catching the bears fur on fire. That would add an extra 10+ damage per shot making it far more likely for a successful fight without any injuries.

They quickly found a spot behind a boulder that Victoria could use to set up a firing position. She would start off with 10 fire arrows and use the regular ones after that. They both got in position with Aiden circling around to a spot on the opposite side of the grotto. He used the one arrow he had kept to shoot the bear and got its attention quite quickly.

It stood up and roared, the sound reverberating in the wide open space and nearly deafening both of them. Aiden put away his bow quickly and drew his sword. The bear charged at him and Aiden let it get as close as possible before he dodge and ran around it slicing at a leg as the bear slid to a stop so it could turn and follow him. The hide was pretty tough and he barely penetrated with the one handed sword strike while evading but it was enough for the bear to keep its focus on him while a flaming arrow hit it from the back.

Aiden’s dance of death with the bear continued for a while with far too many close calls for his liking. He already got swiped once by a claw resulting in a broken arm and bringing him down to 395/590 health, making movement difficult because of the pain from his arm.

He finally found some time to take out a health potion when the bear raised itself on its hind legs and let out a roar, just as he was about to drink the potion, the bear stomped down hard shaking the ground and knocking him off balance. Unfortunately as he fell he tried to stabilize himself with his injured arm and the pain render him unable to react in time as the bear charged him.

Victoria watched in horror as Aiden after stumbling was knocked against a boulder by the charging bear. She saw he was down to only a fifth of his health from that attack and he had the bleeding and unconscious symbols on his status. Panic gripped Victoria and she knew that she had to do something or he would die.

The bear was down to 900 health at this point so she figured if she was careful she could finish the fight alone. She ran out of her hiding spot and sprinted towards the bear that was slowly advancing on her downed boyfriend. She slid to a stop in front of it and shot an arrow straight into the surprised bears right eye. She quickly shot another one trying to aim at the other eye but missed hitting slightly below instead.

The bear was now fully aware of its new target and charged at her instead of Aiden. Victoria ran, after casting a quick healing wind on Aiden. She wasn’t as fast as Aiden but she was fast enough. She went around a large boulder causing the bear to loose sight of her.

When the bear came around in search of its prey Victoria came around the other side of the boulder and to the bears rear. She splashed it with some of the oil they used for their torches. The bear hadn’t noticed her yet so she slung her bow on her shoulder and took out her spear.

She charged at the beast and drove her spear as deep as she could into its hind leg. The bear roared and turned quickly almost whipping Victoria across the room with the force, but she let the spear go before that could happen.

She sprinted back towards her hiding place where there was a lit torch stuck in the ground. She quickly dipped a cloth and oil covered arrow into the torch lighting it aflame. The bear was almost upon her now, it was limping slightly because of spear stuck in its leg but it still kept coming.

Unfortunately she didn’t have the angle to hit the part she splashed with oil. Coming up with a new plan quickly, Victoria shot the arrow into the bear hitting it in the neck, then she picked up the torch and went around the boulder repeating the tactic from before and getting behind the bear to throw the torch at its back lighting the oil coating it and eliciting a loud pained roar from the bear. She quickly backed away and checked its health. It was down to 730 and it was dropping fast from being on fire.

Victoria shot arrows into to the flaming and enraged bear that chased her whenever she could but the chase only lasted half a minute before the bear wised up and changed course towards the small stream of water hoping to douse itself.

Unfortunately for the bear while it was rolling around in the stream to put out the fire Victoria was pelting it was a constant flurry of arrows. By the time the bear put out the fire it was already down to 100 health and before it even got half way to her it had died, looking like a giant burned out porcupine.

“Congratulations! Your Party has slain lvl 30 Dungeon Boss - Grizzly Terror: Rank (f) 20,000 essence gained”

“You have leveled up!”

“Your Party member Aiden Winters has leveled up!”

Victoria heard the sound of bones snapping into place from behind her as Aiden woke up with a pained yelped. He looked around wildly for a few moments waving away the messages in front oh his face. He first noticed the relieved face of Vicky hovering above him and signing if he was alright. He nodded distractedly as he took stock of the situation.

He looked around noticing the boss was dead then he winced remembering what happened. “Thank you” he said while getting back to his feet. He was immediately engulfed in a needy hug which he readily returned. “That was close. Thanks for saving me, you seem to be doing that a lot.” After a few moments for themselves, they both walked slowly up to the bear and Aiden noticed it was really burned. He figure Vicky must have set it on fire. They looted the bear making it dissipate and leaving behind a pile of arrows and Victoria’s spear which they collected.

The bear dropped 120 medium grade Mana stones as well as a spell scroll which was the first time they encountered such a thing. They decided that Victoria should learn it since she was the more ranged fighter of the two and had a higher Intelligence stat so the spell would be more effective for her. Victoria shared the complete spell information with him once she used the scroll.

Flame Cyclone - lvl 1

Unleashes a cyclone of flames in a designated location. Spell duration: 5 seconds. Range: 25 feet. Affected area: 10 foot radius from point of origin. Cost: 100 Mana.

Effect: Deal 40-45 base Fire damage per second. High chance to set targets aflame.

It was a really good spell for crowd control and even against single enemies. It would have been very useful against this boss for example. Aiden decided to take a look through the system shop to see if he could get any spells for himself once they were out of here. He right now had the frost wave spell that came from the ring but the spells on accessories were weaker that their actual counterparts and had much larger limitations to them like the 10 minute cool down for his spell.

Once they were done here they moved on to the lit up circle that appeared on the ground which differed from the exit portal they used to leave the previous dungeon. Once they both stepped inside the circle they were teleported to the safe area of the second floor of the dungeon which they knew by the message that popped up. Aiden sighed lightly. He figured that would be the case. They both settled down to eat a late lunch and relax a bit after the fight they just had.