Chapter 30

Water, Rock, and Fire.

We fought four more grapplers in the next three hours. It was taking us half as much time taking the monsters down than when we first ran into them, thanks mostly to Arris’s boon of strength. I’d even had time to cast Burning Flare on a couple of them, which ended up dealing a small bit of damage. Robern had gotten pretty lucky and scored a hit in the center of one of the grappler’s eyes. Filo and Arris were becoming experts in dealing with the stone monsters.

We were on our last torch by the time we came to another door and monolith. The monolith was the same size as the first, though the color of the stone was perhaps a bit more grey.

“Do you think it’s another buff?” Arris said.

“Let me do an inspection first,” Robern said.

It only took Robern a few minutes to carefully look for traps and whatever else he looked for. Satisfied that things were on the safe side, he gave us the go-ahead to figure things out.

“Should I push on the door?” Arris said.

“Let’s do things in the same order as last time,” Lep said. “Just in case something bad might happen.”

“I agree with Lep,” Robern said.

“Then who’s going to touch the monolith this time?” Pelle said.

Now that we knew the monoliths might likely grant a time sensitive buff, we were each eager to be the one to receive it. Arris declined because he already had a buff. In the end, we decided Lep should be the one.

When he put his hand on the monolith, a low hum came from the stone. Blue light glowed between his palm and the surface of the monolith.

When I checked, Lep’s health bar had a blue bouncing crystal above it with the number eight hundred floating in white letters.

“Take a look at your mana bar, Lep,” Pelle said.

When Lep cast his mana bar, he was astonished.

“I had one hundred and ninety mana points before,” he said. “It looks like there’s ten times that now.”

“If the buff is as straightforward as it seems, then you should now have nine hundred and ninety mana points now,” Pelle said. “There’s also a twelve hour time limit on yours.”

“I’ve got nearly one thousand mana points for the next half day,” Lep said. “It’s too bad my spells don’t do much against the grapplers.”

“You know what you should do,” Robern said. “You should use that extra mana to level up whatever you want before you lose it again.”

“You think that’ll work?” Lep said.

None of us had a clue. It could be that the points he would use to level up a spell would also be temporary. Or it could be permanent. Either way, we had a mage with a much bigger mana pool than before.

We moved on through the door after Arris put a hand to the wood and it exploded. We stepped over scattered debris and continued in the darkness. Lep had the idea to use one of his spells he seldom used.

Wandering Spitfire was an unusual spell. It created a walking tubby flame with a jack-o-lantern smile and cowlicked flames for hair. It was armless and wandered into the abyss at a pace we could easily follow. The light it cast was enough to replace two torches and Lep could easily dispel the magic when he needed to.

“How many more do you think there are?” Pelle said, coming over to walk beside me. “Monoliths I mean. Do you think we’ll each get one?”

“Good question. It seems to be the pattern, so I guess we’ll see, right?”

“What do you think the boss will be?”

“Something big, for sure.”

“Only three of us can deal damage to the grapplers. Do you think the boss will be the same?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. It’s pretty unlucky that the grapplers are so armored and resistant to a lot of magic abilities. It’s a good thing we have Filo and Arris.”

“What do you think we’ll do?” Pelle said.

“It’s hard to say. We won’t know until we come up against it. Everyone’s pretty excited about the buffs from the monoliths, but I’m worried about why they’re there. It makes sense to me that we’ll need them for the boss.”

For the next six hours, we came to two more doors, and fought at least a dozen more grapplers. One of the monoliths we came to had given Filo a speed buff, and the other had given Vynk an armor buff.

Defeating the grapplers from then on was relatively easy.

The dungeon descended and the air became cooler and humid. We came upon an underground river that crossed perpendicular to the dungeon tunnel and rushed across the ground. The river followed a cave tunnel and came up to our ankles. The water was icy cold as we crossed.

Shortly after that, the dungeon sloped up and we came to the biggest door so far. The door was nearly three stories tall and equally as wide. This one had no monolith in front, and we let Arris push on the door until the center blew apart. We walked through to discover a large chamber with a similar river flowing across it. The water was a bit higher, coming up to our calves this time.

Apart from the tunnel system where the river flowed, there were no other exits. At the far end was a large square stone. In front of it was a massive boulder.

“This is it,” Pelle said, looking at her mana bar. “This is the boss.”

After a moment, the boulder in front of the giant square stone began to unfurl. It was a humpback grappler, but four times the size of the ones we’d fought so far. It staggered to its feet with a mix of slow and speedy movements. It gazed upon us and heaved a breath of yellow vapor. It smelled sulphuric when it settled around us. Then the grappler stretched its arms and flexed every part of its body at once.

Strange stone-esque veins rose to the surface of its skin. The veins deepened to a blood red while the grappler flexed and strained. Every piece of stone armor that was attached to it, broke and shattered without falling off. I felt a warmth suddenly fill the space and vapor began to mist off the running water.

The grappler’s veins then began to glow a brighter and brighter red until they looked like rivulets of lava. Its body was suddenly swarming with pumping veins of lava that lent a menacing light to the chamber.

This one’s going to be tough.

“Attack!” Robern said, bolting into action.

That’s not a plan you fool! It’s too late! Everyone’s moving in. Filo needs to change her position and flank attack this time. Vynk needs to take all the damage. Lep needs to bombard the boss with as many spells as he can. Robern needs to go for vulnerabilities in the boss. We need to kill it before it gets to the second phase! Now’s the time for me to step up and lead! We can do this!