Chapter 177: Chapter 163: Descent

"Do you think we should risk it?" asked Cluma, looking into the distance, where my [Mana Sight] had picked up a nest of two dozen anacondas. They may not be the size of the anaconda emperor we'd fought on the tenth floor, but they made up for it in numbers. Furthermore, they were close enough to the edge of the jungle that there was no way we'd make it past them while following the chamber wall. We'd need to detour deeper into the jungle. Not far enough that I couldn't keep the edge in view with [Mana Sight], but enough that it would add a significant amount of time to our trip.

"Yeah, we should. If we struggle with these, we'll have no hope with the floor fifteen boss."

"It's a pity you can't turn invisible."

"You need to find a stealth skill extension bracelet, like my spatial skill one."

"Oh, that would be awesome!" she exclaimed, ears perking upwards inside her helmet.

"Indeed, but for now... Since you could hide from the tenth floor boss, I doubt these have any way of perceiving you either. We should use our normal strategy. I'll make mid-range attacks with lightning and [Far Reach] to hold their attention, while you get up close and stabby."

It helped that the snakes in this dungeon didn't have ranged attacks. Sure, there were a few that could launch themselves at high speed, but that wasn't the same as being able to attack at range; it simply meant that they delivered themselves to easy slashing distance without me needing to move. As long as I could keep their aggro, and get them to ignore the fact that they kept sprouting stab wounds for no visible reason, Cluma could act with impunity while I remained at a safe distance.

Cluma edged towards them, triggering no reaction and hence confirming they couldn't see through her [Stealth]. I followed behind, causing an outbreak of aggressive hissing the moment the first of the snakes spotted me. I responded with an arc of lightning, which, while more effective on these lower levelled monsters than the anaconda emperor, still took twenty seconds for a kill. Obviously, that was more than enough time for the rest of the nest to slither towards me, straight into the waiting daggers of Cluma.

The snakes were five metres long each, so the pure bulk of the nest prevented Cluma getting them all as they passed. I delayed the front-runners with [Far Reach] powered slashes, but still needed to back away as they approached faster than I could fend them off. The tree density and raised roots snaking the floor made evading with [Far Step] or [Weft Walk] infeasible, but the snakes weren't impossibly fast, particularly while trying to deal with magical slashes raining down from every angle.

I dispatched ten of them, a few already wounded by Cluma. While I managed it without taking a hit, the fight hadn't gone perfectly; evading the swarm had pushed me away from her. I was out of sight of her, and not all the snakes were accounted for. Given my role was to draw attention away from her, that wasn't ideal. I ran back towards where [Mana Sight] showed her fighting. And also one of the anacondas wrapping itself around her.

A scream sounded from between the trees, and I sped up, resisting the urge to activate [Weft Walk]. I'd only trip and slow myself down. Bursting between the trees back to her original location, I saw an anaconda wrapped in an empty coil, apparently suspended in mid-air. Another two barred my way towards her. Through active [Mana Sight], I could see Cluma caught and struggling, unable to break out with strength, but fighting back with mana instead. The leathery skin of the snake split in a dozen places as she spammed [Minor Harm].

As I dispatched the pair of monsters blocking my way, the anaconda that had caught Cluma reared its head above her and opened its jaws, obviously intending to bite down on her head. I stabbed with [Far Reach], which combined with the damage Cluma had already done, let her pull an arm out. She shoved it into the open mouth, blasting out more casts of [Minor Harm] as she emptied her mana pool. Blood poured out of the gaping maw as I sliced through the crushing coils, finally killing the thing. Cluma toppled over, still wrapped up in layers of snake, thankfully no longer constricting her, but the weight alone wouldn't have been pleasant. Nor the blood.

"Are you okay?" I asked, trying to untangle her, but the only response was a moan. [Analysis] was blocked by her earring, leaving me unable to see her health. I grabbed one of my potions, prepared to pour it down her throat, but she held up a hand.

"I'm... okay..." she managed, letting her arm flop back down. "Just... need to... get my... breath back."

"Phew. Sorry. I didn't get forced back far, but with how dense the trees are, it was still enough that I lost their attention."

Cluma lay panting for a minute. Aside from being drenched in monster blood, she had no visible wounds, but the sort of wounds she'd have taken from being crushed like that wouldn't be visible through her armour anyway.

"Okay, that's enough lying around," she said, climbing back to her feet. I noted with alarm that she stumbled slightly as she did so. "Must remember in the future that anacondas are really not good at hugging."

I suppressed a snort of laughter, not letting Cluma distract me from the post-combat debrief. "Why didn't you jump into the trees, or withdraw?"

"I didn't think it knew where I was. It was slithering past me, but then suddenly grabbed me with its tail, and [Threat Perception] didn't fire because it wasn't a damaging attack."

Neither was getting her armour scratched back in Dawnhold, but it still fired for that. If [Threat Perception] twisted itself to her whims, was her hugging comment more than a joke? Because the snake did something that resembled a hug, it didn't fire? Weird, but given this was Cluma, distressingly plausible.

As we got deeper, the monsters were gaining stats. Not just physical, but their intelligence and wisdom were creeping up too. Perhaps they had come up with some way to detect the invisible Cluma mid-fight. Given the mud, footprints were easily visible, so it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. Another reason the Bloodrock dungeon might actually have been better for her [Stealth] than this open jungle.

"Please keep the analysis-blocking function of your earring off while we're in a dungeon. It stops me checking your health."

"Aww. It's not like I can see yours, either."

"We have different skill sets. If you had [Analysis], I'd keep [Secrecy] off for you. And it's not like you have anything on there I don't know about."

"..."

"Do you?" When had I last seen Cluma's status? The last time I'd seen the full thing was when she got [Novice Delver], and then I'd seen a partial copy when we had our [Item Box] accident. That was far too recent for much of interest to have happened since. "Besides, even if you do, your [Privacy] blocks me seeing anything over rank two."

"No, there's no new titles or traits. There, I've turned it off."

Name: Cluma
Species: Beastkin (cat-sìth)
Class: Darkness Mage (Level 3/48)
Class History: [Commoner] [Apprentice Fighter] [Scout] [Apprentice Mage]
Soul Points: 12
Health: 47/53
Stamina: 106/106
Mana: 84/84
Strength: 34(+12)
Dexterity: 47(+12)
Endurance: 36(+12)
Intelligence: 25(+12)
Wisdom: 29(+12)
Charisma: 36(+12)
Rank 1 Artes: [Backstab 10] [Armour Break 8] [Rapid Shot 10] [Piercing Shot 7]
Rank 2 Artes: [Snap Thrust 9] [Critical Strike 8]
Rank 1 Spells: [Minor Harm 7] [Minor Drain 4] [Weaken Light 1] [Darklight 2]
Rank 2 Spells: [Darken Senses 4] [Orb of Darkness 1] [Extinguish Light 1]
Rank 1 Skills: [Basic Cooking 10] [Weapon Proficiency: Dagger 10] [Inspection 10] [Concealment 10] [Meditation 10] [Enlarged Mana Pool 10] [Hunting 10] [Dismantling 10] [Weapon Proficiency: Bow 10] [Weapon Style: Dual Wielding 10] [Privacy 10] [Danger Sense 10] [Mana Sense 9] [Mana Control 3] [Mana Finesse 2]
Rank 2 Skills: [Stealth 10] [Threat Perception 10] [Monster Perception 10] [Trap Perception 8]
Traits: [XXXX] [XXXX] [XXXX] [XXXX] [XXXX]
Titles: [Jack of All Trades] [Athlete] [Novice Delver]

That confirmed she wasn't badly injured, and she seemed to be steady on her feet again, so I could stop worrying. Beyond that, just how many levels of [Mana Sense] had she gained over the past couple of weeks?! She had the other mana-related skills too, although since she could get them for free between [Magical Beast] and [Jack of All Trades], that was no surprise. That same line of reasoning meant that she had no attuned affinities beyond darkness and death, or else she'd have bought the free spells.

"If you're all done staring, shall we get going?"

"I was just admiring your [Mana Sense] progress," I said, stripping out the mana cores from our kills. Cluma joined in, but I could see how distracted she was even through her [Stealth]. And this time, I didn't think it was an after-effect of the snake.

"Go ahead and eat one. I can tell you want to," I goaded.

She didn't need telling twice, biting down onto a core and draining it of mana, letting the resulting dust fall to the floor.

"Not as good as the one from Synklisi, but still tasty," she said.

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"It was only one level lower. Wouldn't have thought it would make that much difference."

"Maybe the type of monster matters? Or quality drops rapidly at the low levels?"

"Or you just weren't as hungry."

"We'll find out soon enough," Cluma said, shrugging. "And yes, [Sense Mana] has been levelling like crazy. Each time I picked up those mana flows, I got two levels."

"Huh? But you weren't even using [Mana Sense] for that."

"I know. It must be tied in with my new innate abilities, somehow."

Bah. Why was everyone cheating at magic?

We didn't encounter any further groups of monsters even half of the size of that enormous nest for the rest of the floor, letting us reach floor fifteen with relative ease. As usual with this dungeon, the same sort of monsters repeated for several floors, and fifteen was populated by giant anacondas. Once again, we made it across the chamber without hitting any nests of quite so many individuals, although I didn't quite manage to travel the floor completely uninjured, one snake getting a lucky blow in as it rammed my leg. I only lost a couple of points of health, so it wouldn't do more than bruise, but it made it clear that we had made it to floors where the monsters were not complete pushovers.

The boss antechamber between floors fifteen and sixteen was crowded in comparison to any others, with over twenty individuals leaning against tree trunks or sitting around, as well as the translucent portal indicating a boss fight was in progress. And they weren't just sitting on the floor, either.

"Huh? Is this a tavern?" asked Cluma, fading into visibility as she stared at the tables set up along one side of the room.

I... couldn't think of any better explanations. A couple of tables of delvers were blatantly eating and drinking. They were being rather less boisterous than delvers in a tavern normally were, but that may have had something to do with the row of bedrolls against the opposite wall, on which another half dozen delvers were sleeping.

"I think this is a silver mining operation," I commented.

"What do you mean?"

"The portal to the surface is one-way, and it would take days to get back here if someone left. Rather than a party fighting the boss until they reach their carrying capacity, then leaving and making their way back down, it would be more efficient for them to stay down here on a long-term basis, and have smaller parties specialising in speed and stealth perform supply runs and collect the ingots."

"Actually, we just toss the bags of ingots through the portal. No need for anyone to carry them," interjected a bulky human man, walking up to us where we'd frozen up just inside the portal. "And with an infinite meat and water supply only a portal away, we don't need much in the way of supplies either. Welcome to the floor fifteen base camp. Are you new personnel, or just passing through?"

Water? I suppose they'd just need to carry a few open-topped barrels through to floor fifteen or sixteen during a thunderstorm, and they'd get all they could need. Living off meat and water didn't sound particularly healthy to me, but no doubt there were some supply runs. I couldn't see clearly what people were eating, but it definitely included more than steak.

"We want to clear the dungeon!" exclaimed Cluma with her usual enthusiasm.

The man raised an eyebrow, but didn't otherwise comment. "Then I wish you the best of luck. Do you want to fight this boss?"

"Mmm!"

"Then let that group over there know," he said, pointing. "They're scheduled to run next."

"Wait, aren't you going to comment on us being too young or something?" I commented, surprised at how this conversation was going.

The guy gave me an odd look. "Yes, you're young, but you're also here. You look in good shape, with no obvious injuries. I'm hardly going to complain that you shouldn't be here when the evidence otherwise is right in front of my face."

"What a refreshing attitude," I laughed. "I'm Peter, by the way. This is Cluma."

"Caleb. Nice to meet you."

I caught a flicker out of the corner of my eye and turned to see the portal clearing. Whoever was in there must have finished their fight.

"Thanks for the help," said Cluma, giving Caleb a quick hug, then running over to the party he pointed out.

"Hold up!" I called, as I chased after her.

"But don't we want to fight the boss?"

"Yes, but not the very next fight."

"Why not?"

A group of seven exited the boss chamber, and the next party, a group of eight, entered, the portal once again shimmering into translucency.

"Remember that we're at the limits of our abilities here. Rushing in without preparation would be foolish. We need to get details on the boss and ask for advice first. We need to know what we're facing."

"Ah, right," muttered Cluma, ears drooping. "Drat. I'm supposed to be the one stopping you doing stupid things. You're taking over my job!"

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