The Fifteenth Floor

Almost as soon as the door slams closed, several puffs of mist explode into the room, filling it up even more than it already was. And along with that mist, Kat can barely make out the outline of several different monsters of varying types.

“Watch out, monsters are hiding in the mist,” she warns the others while gripping tightly onto her daggers.

None of them are surprised and instead begin focusing on the mist as it spreads outwards. Which is the only thing that saves Pallus from being cut through by one of the monsters from earlier, the creature’s bladed arm simply passing straight over his head after he ducks. Then Kat quickly bolts in and jabs one of her daggers into its side before it can move and proceeds to slit its throat afterwards.

The creature falls to the ground dead as she pulls out her dagger and frowns.

They’re not very durable creatures. Moreso creatures purely meant for attacks from the dark. Stealth attacks.

She turns back around only to wince when she feels something tear a small chunk out of her lower calf, somehow tearing through the armor she had covering it. But when she looks down, she doesn’t find anything there and calls out, “Watch out, one of them is either small or goes for your lower legs!”

As if on cue, she hears someone grunt from behind her, making her grimace before narrowing her eyes on her surroundings and putting more mana into night vision. But this only helps so much as all she manages to see is a brief flash of movement, following which she grunts a drops to one knee as pain floods from her other leg.

“It’s small!” she says, having noted that fact from the brief flash she had seen of it. Then she adds as a wave of relief fills her when Pallus begins healing her legs, “If I had to guess, it’s probably a Fen.”

One of those very annoying miniature wolves that are now made even worse thanks to the mist.

A few seconds later, Kat climbs back to her feet before using her last of her three skills: Dark Wave.

Almost immediately, a powerful shockwave of darkness floods out from her in an arc in front of her, Kat making sure not to hit the others with it. Then the mist begins to clear out a little bit in the wave’s wake.

Kat’s eyes quickly lock onto a fen that suddenly rushes through the partially cleared area before she sends a dagger flying straight at it, catching it in the side of the head and knocking it to the ground.

“Got it!” she shouts, only to turn around and find a void serpent opening its mouth to send a ball of void magic straight at Leon’s back. “Shit!”

The party’s scout tosses another dagger straight at the creature, catching it in the center of its jaw. But the dagger doesn’t kill it as the ball of void mana managed to devour some of the dagger before it dispelled the ball.

That doesn’t turn out to be a problem though as Leon quickly turns around and sends a bolt of lightning straight at the creature, barbecuing it in an instant and making it drop to the ground dead.

Then the sound of metal hitting the stone ground draws Kat’s attention over to find Charles standing over a dead lycanthian with its shield having crushed the thing’s head.

The mist suddenly begins to clear up a little after that before a chest appears at the back of the cell.

Kat and the others continue watching for any other monsters for a few seconds though, just in case. And when they don’t find any, they move about cleaning up after the battle. Kat grabbing her daggers from the monster corpses, Rose grabbing her arrows, and Jake following suit.

Good thing the dungeon stopped caring about taking this stuff after he became a high enough level that it didn’t matter.

After they finish gathering everything, they walk over to the chest before Kat quickly checks it for traps. Then after not finding any, she opens the chest, revealing a single nugget of World Ore inside that has each of the party members immediately growing excited.

Kat can’t help but grin.

Another benefit to being the first to go on a new floor. Because this dungeon seems to like giving out the rare drops on the first drop for each floor, just to show what is on it.

“Looks like we have another floor where people will be heading towards if for no other reason than to find World Ore,” Leon says, but despite his words, he has a very faint grin on his face that Kat can’t help but notice.

Kat walks up to him and hands her party leader the World Ore while saying, “This should boost the immigration rate even more, don’t you think?”

The half Elf nods his head while accepting the World Ore and putting it away. “Not that we were having much of a problem with that in the first place.”

Kat nods her head before glancing at the others, and then the dungeon around them.

The nation’s really growing into a real power now. And one of the few absolutely neutral powers out there since Leon stays out of the Eternal War between the Demonic and Angelic races. Although I can’t help but wonder what would happen to Wolfdenn if he did decide to interfere in another nation’s affairs.

The others continue talking for a little bit before each of the party members regroup and they begin to leave the cell back into the mist covered hallways of the maze.

I can very much see other mercenaries going back to this floor a lot, since I’m willing to bet that the drop rate for World Ore is probably higher here than in the other couple floors it’s on. Or at least, that’s usually how it works.

Kat frowns at that thought.

Then again, it could very well be different for this one. It’s certainly different in other ways, that’s for sure.