The next cavern wasn’t that different from the previous one. This time there were two more Voracious Rabbits which made things a little bit more interesting but once again the increased strength of our group meant that we didn’t have any real trouble clearing out these monsters either and after we looted everything and checked for resources we moved on deeper into the Den.

“So, what else do you think that we’ll find down here?” Warren whispered as they walked down the tunnel.

“Well I actually expected to run into a different type of rabbit in the last cavern,” I whispered back.

“Well yeah so did I,” Warren admitted. “But what exactly?”

“Hmm, well we’ve already fought Armoured Rabbits so maybe something that attacks really quickly or some sort of healer?” I mused. “You know since rabbits actually use medicinal herbs in the wild when they’re sick or injured.”

“Or one that burrows underground and then ambushes us when we walk over the top of them,” Warren pointed out. “But I’m not expecting to see some sort of rabbit mage any time soon.”

“Not until the Boss,” I agreed. “And even then, only if we’re really unlucky.”

“Really you two”’ Kelly sighed as she reached out to smack her husband on the back of his head with her staff. “You’re supposed to be on the lookout in case we get attacked by monsters in the tunnel not gossiping like a couple of old women around the well.”

Warren just chuckled and shook his head as he continued down the tunnel towards the next cavern. We had of course both been paying attention to what was in front of us while we had been talking but that wasn’t why Kelly was acting the way that she was. She had said that because as our group’s tactician she didn’t want her expectations of what we might end up facing to be tainted by what we were saying even if we all knew that we were both probably right.

When we reached the end of the tunnel we paused for a few moments in surprise. Instead of the large group of Voracious Rabbits and one or two Armoured Rabbits that we had been expecting there were three Armoured Rabbits only a couple of Voracious Rabbits and a couple of things that were labelled Rabbit Herbalists. The Rabbit Herbalists were even smaller than the normal Voracious Rabbits and also had white pale fur which made it easy to distinguish them from the Voracious Rabbits and I immediately pegged them as some sort of healer and a priority target.

“Huh, looks like we were right,” I muttered to Warren who just smirked back at me even as Kelly breathed out audibly through her nose.

“Okay that’s enough you two,” Evie said even as she held back laughter. “Let’s just get started.

“Fine,” Warren snorted as he raised his shield and sceptre and launched himself forwards into the cavern closely followed by me and Fern.

According to the tactics that we had set out in advance if there were more than two Armoured Rabbits Warren would lock two down as best as he could while the rest of us took out the remaining one as quickly as possible. This unfortunately put quite a lot of pressure on the still learning Evie since she had to keep both Warren and I as healthy as possible while we tanked the monsters.

Kelly created a wall of earth between Warren and I so that neither of us would be attacked from behind but still allowing Evie, Katy, and her to provide support to all the melee fighters. This meant that if anything went wrong and some of the rabbits tried to attack them Katy would have to defend them until one of us was able to come and help but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

The Armoured Rabbits that we were fighting right now were quite a bit more powerful than the first ones that we had fought but the thing that really made this fight more difficult were the Rabbit Herbalists which would dart in and either spit either Fern or me which would inflict us with a minor poison effect or on the Armoured Rabbit that we were fighting which would heal it slightly. Fern very quickly switched to attacking the Rabbit Herbalists whenever they came into range. However, she couldn’t chase them down because of how fast they could move which added to the time that it took to kill all of them.

Even I hit a couple of them so that we could kill them faster, but it still took far too long to kill all of them, and I knew that Evie was struggling to keep up with healing us as well as curing the poison effect.

It took Fern and I over five minutes to wipe out all the Voracious Rabbits, Rabbit Herbalists but even once we had done that, we still had to kill the Armoured Rabbit which had been healed every time we injured it.

However since we had fought multiple Armoured Rabbits before Fern and I were able to finish it off without receiving more than three glancing blows that didn’t even take off a third of my HP and instead of letting Evie heal me I quickly pulled out a potion and drank it.

Once I was back at full HP, I went to help Warren and the others who had switched targets. As I rounded the wall of earth that Kelly had created, I saw my chance to take out one of the Rabbit Herbalists that were healing the Armoured Rabbits that Warren had been keeping busy and activated my Lunge Skill.

My naginata ripped the unfortunate monster nearly in two as I shot forwards. As it’s lifeless body fell from my weapon I turned my attention to another of the agile creatures and cast my Lightning Stream which scorched it to death in a matter of seconds and I quickly played the crackling stream of energy over one of the Armoured Rabbits causing it to suddenly switch its attention to me.

“Thanks man!” Warren shouted as he smashed his shield into the other Armoured Rabbit. My friend was looking quite worse for wear despite Evie’s best efforts and I knew that if we had taken even another minute or two to kill the monsters that we had been fighting on the other side of the barricade.

While things still weren’t at the point where I was going to start worrying that it was time to stop and head back to town it was clear that this fight was starting to approach that limit. I wasn’t going to start worrying until we really started to go through the healing and mana potions though because we brought plenty of those.

Just as I thought this someone splattered across my back causing me to gasp in pain and surprise as it started eating into my flesh and armour.

“Fuck!” I shouted as I stepped out of the way of a sudden lunging attack from the Armoured Rabbit that I was facing and glanced behind me to see a Rabbit Herbalist that was struggling to remove its paw from the pool of quicksand that Kelly had created under its feet. Seeing that I was having trouble Fern shot towards me and stabbed it with both of her daggers.

Realising that she had things in hand I turned my attention back to the massive rabbit in front of me just in time to see one of its paws hurtling towards my head. Acting quickly, I brought my Ward up in time to deflect the attack and staggered backwards from the force of the blow as my Ward shattered and the Armoured Rabbits surprisingly sharp claws cut into the flesh beneath.

With a snarl I raked the blade of my naginata across its face before ducking under another blow. This dance continued for several more minutes and as I slowly wore down the Armoured Rabbit, I noticed several flashes of light as Evie healed Warren. A little bit after that Fern leapt on the back of the rabbit that I was fighting and started stabbing it repeatedly.

Not long after that the rabbit stiffened as I rammed the head of my naginata into its neck and twisted before ripping the weapon out. Turning towards the other monster that Warren was fighting I raised my hands and cast my Lightning Stream spell once again.

The Armoured Rabbit howled in pain as streamers of crackling energy scorched its flesh. Seeing his chance Warren reared back and slammed his suddenly glowing sceptre into the side of the things head with all the force that he could muster. The stunned rabbit stumbled to one side as I launched myself towards it with my Lunge Skill. This attack was enough to knock it completely onto its side which allowed us to finally finish it off with a barrage of attacks.

“Holy shit,” Warren panted. “That was a much harder fight.”

“Yeah,” I gasped in agreement. “Those Rabbit Herbalists really added to the difficulty of the fight.”

“No kidding,” Evie said as she and Kelly approached. “I honestly couldn’t keep up with the healing that we needed.”

“I disagree,” I replied before anyone else could speak up. “You barely kept up with the healing that we needed. You did keep up though which is all that we can ask of you. It’s not like you’ve been playing games like this for very long after all.”

“Yeah,” Kelly nodded. “We don’t consider you to be unable to keep up just yet and don’t worry about it when that does happen. We have plenty of potions so even if we reach a point where you can’t keep up, we should still be able to finish the fight and head back to town.”

Now that short conversation was over, I started collecting the Soul Shards from the monsters that we had killed. Unsurprisingly the Soul Shards I collected from the Rabbit Herbalists were the first ones that I had ever seen that had any Affinity for the Spirit Stat. It was only a low Affinity for Spirit but I was looking forward to using them to make Basic Spirit Cores because I knew that those were worth a lot of money due to how rare monsters that dropped Soul Shards with any Affinity for the Spirit Stat at all were rare at the moment because of the low average Level of players. I expected this to change as more and more powerful monsters were discovered but for now these scraps would have to do.

Once we had finished looting, we all sat down. Most of us had managed to either Level Up or had Levelled Up one or more of our Soul Cores. I had Levelled Up both y Glaive Core and my Spellglove Core and looked over my options.

Congratulations your Basic Spellglove Core has reached Level 5!

Please pick an upgrade from the choices provided.

Increase Intelligence by 1

Increase SP regen by 0.5

Soul Points: 9/150

Congratulations your Basic Glaive Core has reached Level 5!

Please pick an upgrade from the choices provided.

Increase Dexterity by 1

Increase Agility by 1

Soul Points: 4/150

After a few seconds I selected the SP regen increase and the Agility increase. Then sat back as I wondered why the number of Soul Points, I needed to Level Up these Cores again hadn’t doubled and glanced over to Katy who was finishing up what she was doing.

“Hey Katy, can you tell me how the number of Soul Points that you need to Level UP a Soul Core will increase once they reach higher Levels?”

“Well let me explain it this way,” Katy replied. “Your Soul Cores are Level 5, now right?”

“Yeah.”

“If the number of Soul Points you needed to increase the Level of your Soul Cores increased by let’s say double the previous amount how many points would you need for the Cores to reach Level 10?” Katy asked. “Don’t bother answering that, it doesn’t actually matter. What matters is that it would take way too long even with the larger number of Soul Points that you receive from killing monsters so the number of Soul Points you need to Level Up your Soul Cores is only going to increase by 50 each time it Levels Up after Level 5.”

“Alright that makes sense,” I nodded. I had been a bit worried about how many Soul Points I would have to earn to unlock the higher Levels of even these basic Soul Cores so it was good to know that the Levelling requirements wouldn’t continue to grow massively like they had been.

“So, what did you unlock Zeke?” Warren asked.

“Nothing too interesting,” I sighed. “Just increases to my Agility and SP regen.”

“Well that should still be useful,” my friend chuckled. “I unlocked a couple of new Skills myself. A new one for my Shield Core that allows me to move quickly to block an attack aimed at an ally and one for my Sceptre Core that allows me to create a shockwave that damages multiple enemies at once.”

“And I unlocked a couple of new Skills as well,” Kelly continued. “One allows me to increase someone’s defence by covering them in rocks and the other allows me to create an area on the ground that increases the power of spells cast.”

“You guys are lucky,” Evie sighed. “I’m so close to Levelling Up my magic and wand Cores. I just need a couple more Soul Points for those two. I did get a Stat increase for my Spirit from my gun though.”

“I’m really close too,” Katy nodded.

“That’s too bad,” Fern sighed. “I unlocked another point each for my Dexterity and my Agility Stats which should make it much easier for me to kill those bloody Rabbit Herbalists.”

“Yeah I really wasn’t expecting them to be able to spit poison like that,” Kelly sighed. “If I had known then I would never have split Warren and Zeke up like I did because it just ruined our ability to actually aim at them and made it harder for us to kill those agile little bastards.”

“Agreed,” I nodded. “Next time we need to focus on taking them out as fast as possible, so we’ll be counting on you girls to do that while Warren and I act as tanks.”

This decided we headed even further into the Den. After that last fight we were being much more careful than we had been earlier. None of us wanted to get caught in a tunnel with an Armoured Rabbit and one or more Herbalists blocking the way or something even worse but luckily, we managed to reach the next cavern without any real difficulty.

What awaited us in this cavern sent a chill down my back. There were no Voracious Rabbits present but that didn’t mean much when there were 5 Armoured Rabbits and more than 10 Rabbit Herbalists. I glanced over my shoulder to suggest to Kelly that we head back to town for now and prepare so that we could return to the Den tomorrow better prepared than we were currently but to my surprise I saw a determined look on her face like she had already prepared a plan.

Kelly met my eyes and nodded silently making me sigh as I turned back towards Warren who had just finished limbering up. With a sigh I picked out my first target a dopy looking Rabbit Herbalist that was between me and the Armoured Rabbit that I was planning on attracting the attention of first. Because there were so many Armoured Rabbits in this cavern I was going to have to keep the attention of two Armoured Rabbits which was going to be a pain but there was no way that I was going to leave four of them to Warren and Fern wouldn’t even survive one hit.

A few seconds later the three melee combats in our party surged forwards which immediately attracted the attention of the monsters in the cavern. I started casting my Lightning Stream spell which surged over the Rabbit Herbalist that I had singled out as I made a beeline towards one of the Armoured Rabbits.

The small monster shrieked in pain as my spell scorched its flesh before falling suddenly silent as multiple projectiles courtesy of the ranged members of our party finished it off which allowed me to change my target to the Armoured Rabbit.

Naturally, this allowed me to very easily attract the attention of the that Armoured Rabbit and once I stopped casting Lightning Stream and fired a Jolt at one of the other Armoured Rabbits just as Warren slammed his sceptre into the forehead of one of the other Armoured Rabbits creating a shockwave that actually managed to knocked the large beast back.

“Now that’s more like it!” My friend laughed as he followed up by slamming his shield into the monster which stunned it and gave him time to fire a bolt of energy from his sceptre at one of the other Armoured Rabbits.

I snorted to myself as I dodge one and then two attacks from the Armoured Rabbits that I was fighting before activating Slash and grinned happily when the blade of my naginata cut right through the thick armour protecting the side of one of the Armoured Rabbits. The attack didn’t do that much damage, but this told me that the recent increase to my Dexterity had increased my damage output enough that I should be able to kill these things much easier.

However, this didn’t mean that the fight was easier than the last one. Once again, the Rabbit Herbalists caused a lot of issues for us with their poison and healing abilities but now that Fern was faster, she could deal with them much easier than before.

Kelly’s new spell that increased the physical defence of whomever it was cast on which was naturally Warren since he was fighting three Armoured Rabbits and he wasn’t fast enough to dodge all three of them at once while I had so far only taken glancing blows from the two that I was fighting.

Thanks to our recent increase in power Evie didn’t have to heal as much as she would’ve previously which allowed the ranged members of our party to spend more time on firing at the Rabbit Herbalists.

Incredibly I was even able to kill one of the Armoured Rabbits that I was fighting before the others finished off the last of the Rabbit Herbalists and the fight didn’t last much longer than that.

“See Evie,” I said once I had recovered from my exertions. “Told you everything would be fine.”

“Yeah,” she agreed as she looked around at the carnage we had created. “That went much better than the last fight.”

“Of course, it did dear,” Kelly laughed. “We knew what we were dealing with this time and several of us had grown stronger from the previous fight.”

“Right then,” Warren said before anyone else spoke. “How about we loot everything and do whatever else we need to do and move along. I want to clear this Den today if possible.”