Chapter 22: Chapter 19 – Forest Dungeon

 

Jake checked the new dungeon allocation as soon as he woke up, it appeared they would be in a forest killing beasts. He was interested that it was not a “kill all” but to kill a number of them. They would have five days to find and kill two hundred beasts, and Jake would be sure to include harvesting their parts. They had set their auction of the Gnoll Chief equipment to complete later today, and they set about their schedule of training and practice, planning to leave after lunch to check out the threat-level of the forest.

They had breakfast, and they set about learning their new skills. Jake and Ophelia set to working together on learning Runic Magic, and Fhesiah her [Winged Combat]. After a few hours they set about their usual sparring and practice for a few more. They had lunch, then started getting ready for the dungeon.

Jake almost always kept all his buffing spells active during their training and study sessions. He was really starting to see dividends in this behavior, as [Haste] and [Reinforcement] both hit level three. Bolster was now sitting at level two, but it appeared that it went from 5% improvement of attributes to 10%, making it a significant jump in the spell’s efficacy. Stamina regeneration Jake kept active at all times, and he had a feeling it was going to reach level four soon. Once that happened, Jake thought that he would be able to jog all day long without taking a break.

They entered the forest without much fanfare, and Jake set out to summoning a random beast. From the motes of light, emerged an oversized bobcat. Normally, a bobcat would be at best 40 pounds in weight, but this bobcat was easily over double the size. While it would not be a challenge for Jake or his party to face, they would be happy to have it stalking through the forest looking for enemies. The two girls took to the skies above the tree line looking for threats, and Jake kept the bobcat somewhat close to his side.

Not long after, they picked a direction; Fhesiah had spotted a dozen boar. They were of a decent size where Jake thought that they could potentially pose a threat if they were not careful, at over three or four hundred pounds, he guessed. Jake made sure the girls were ready to take to the sky, and that they were near a large tree in case the boars charged in their direction for shielding.

Once in position, they opened up with their ball of ice attacks; still not working out a better ability to use with runic magic. Once struck, the herd seemed to gather in a formation like they were going to charge together, but Jake and Ophelia kept casting, striking different boars. The boars ran towards Jake’s party, but they were slow enough that they had gotten three separate casts off, slowing half of them.

Ophelia then blurred into the lead boar from its right with her [Charge] ability, striking with her spear right into the head and bashing it with her shield, retreating to the air before any of the boars could come at her. Meanwhile, the boars charging had to run around the downed boar, making it easy for Jake to position himself in a place that they could not easily approach. He stabbed out with his spear as one of them ran past him, hitting it above the shoulder where he thought the heart might be. Jake found his spear entered easily, and the boar stumbled and fell over.

Jake parked himself next to a tree and supported the Valkyrie and the demoness as they darted in and out of the sky stabbing and slicing the boars, using his [Force Push] to cause them to stumble or get knocked over, and hitting the boars with balls of ice. He sent in his bobcat to disturb a group of them as they rounded and tried to charge towards his position, but eventually the flying women were able to finish off their targets and kill the ones the bobcat was harassing. Eventually, all the boars were taken down, and they didn’t have a scratch on them.

They settled in to loot the monsters, and Jake set the bobcat on patrol to make sure they did not get blindsided by additional enemies. Overall, Jake felt like this fight was much easier to deal with than the gnolls. There was some chaos with the numbers being uneven, but thanks to the girls being able to fly and boars being not very agile, it was easy to keep them from causing damage.

The team settled in for a pattern of hunting creatures for a few hours and training back in the [Refuge] over the next few days, completing the dungeon on the third day. They fought all sorts of creatures in addition to packs of boars: bears, wolves, pumas, a giant very angry porcupine, even a herd of horned lepper; giant rabbits with a horn. The earnings for killing the creatures and dismantling them was quite varied, but Jake found their credit count reaching over 40,000 with the dungeon completion bonus and with the Gnoll Chief’s chainmail armor and weapon having added 5,000. Jake looked longingly at the mana regeneration and heavenly energy increasing item for the [Refuge], but reasoned that saving for the temple was a better move for now as getting the Valkyrie her powers would make them much safer.

When practicing and learning a new combination of runes to form rune words, there was a lot of trial and error and a lot of spent mana. Jake could nearly cast balls of ice all day long with his high mana regeneration, but that was a simple rune word with only three runes. The rune words that Jake and Ophelia were working on now had a minimum of six, and the increase in mana cost per rune was not additive but multiplicative, the cost of six runes in a word to cast a spell being nearly triple the cost of three runes instead of two.

Luckily, Jake was able to complete what was finally an ice spear instead of a ball of ice, and also a fire spear, which the demoness enjoyed. She could control the flames after they struck the target and increase the overall damage the spell accomplished for low effort on her part. Ophelia was able to replicate the spells as well, but it took her a bit longer to cast, and she could cast much fewer of them before she ran out of mana. This was much better for her, as she would only get a few casts in during a fight and focus on melee, anyway, so it was best for her spells to be more powerful to make them count.

It was the following day after completing the forest dungeon filled with beasts, and they were still waiting on their next dungeon allocation. Jake and Ophelia were once again working on their runic magic while the demoness worked on her own advancement, and the Valkyrie turned to Jake and spoke, “Thank you so much for helping me with learning this magic. I don’t think I could have ever accomplished this much on my own. I find making the words in this language far too complicated.”

Jake looked over to the Valkyrie and smiled. He could feel her appreciation, respect, and some affection over the bond. The Valkyrie was right, the rune words were complicated, but he was starting to notice something as he worked through the enchanting books and tried to combine them with the runes as well. He noticed that he could apply fundamental ideas that existed within programming, that he learned for his computer science degree, to using and forming rune words. He decided to voice some of his thoughts, “I don’t think so, I think you are a very quick learner and a hard worker, but it is easy to get discouraged from the complexity. I think some of my schooling from Earth is helping me with understanding all of this, it is nothing special.”

Jake noticed that certain parts of the phrases of words could be substituted and traded to alternate effects. This was how he created the fire spear spell; in a way you could see it as Jake trading out the word “ice” for the word “fire” in the sentence “create a spear of ice and shoot it at the target.” Of course, it was not that simple, and Jake had to change more than just one rune, but that was the general idea. Jake saw this as similar to functions in programming, a reusable piece of code that would manipulate whatever was sent to it for a desired result. In this case, turning whatever was sent to the function into a spear and shooting it at the target. Jake didn’t think this was exactly game-breaking information or anything, but it just made it easier for him to associate with it in his head.

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Jake’s new goal was to enchant his staff-spear with various functions, so that he need only send the input in order to complete a spell, and change it easily on the fly. The function of turning whatever was sent into it into a spear and shooting it at the target would already be there, so if Jake used his fire rune word and sent it through the staff, it would cast his fire spear spell. If he used his ice rune word and sent it, it would cast his ice spear. If Jake ever learned lightning, or earth runes, he should be able to do the same. Jake could tell that this was possible, and he would add various functions to make casting much faster and versatile, as remembering the phrases of rune words was becoming more and more challenging, and taking more time to form the numerous runes using his mana control, and these were still considered simple.

Jake could tell that as his intelligence increased, it was not like he was getting smarter, not exactly. He could think slightly faster, but his largest improvement was to his memory. While he could normally take in knowledge pretty well, remembering the gist of most of what he read the first time, he never could remember the precise wording of sentences. Now, with his intelligence as high as it is, he could nearly recite entire pages with very few errors after he read them just a single time, sparing no conscious effort to memorize them.

This was what was allowing Jake to work through learning a new magical language in such a short period. He decided to add for the Valkyrie’s benefit, “I’m also only able to improve so much because you’re helping me. You were the one that found how to make the ball of fire, after all. I’m really glad we’re able to work together on this. On top of that, you have really brought me up to speed with using a shield, and our coordination can finally stop Fhesiah.”

The Valkyrie seemed to blush, but she nodded. It was true; in just a few days of training, Jake was now a wielder of the Valkyrie’s old diamond-shaped shield, and it was good enough for him to bring it to battle on the last day in the forest, having already reached the second level of proficiency. Using their positioning and coordination, even when the demoness maximized her speed, they were able to keep her at bay. It seemed the Valkyrie wanted to say something else, but was interrupted when he received a notification, the same dungeon information available to them as well.

 

Jake reviewed the enemies on the wiki, and found that they were likely going to be quite valuable. About the size of a medium-sized dog, these enemies could crawl up and over each other and swarm a target a lot faster than they would usually expect. Still, it appeared their carapaces and cores would be quite valuable, as well as other parts of their bodies. It would only take around two dozen to finally be able to build Ophelia’s shrine, or perhaps some more if they destroyed the sellable parts.

Knowing that the time was so near, they spent a fair amount of time researching the gods and goddesses of [The Alliance]. They purchased books that seemed to be biased both for and against them, checked the alliance forums for details, even minor grievances people had with the gods. In the end, they decided to stick with Jake’s gut feeling and stick with Hestia.

Hestia did not participate much in fighting against the dungeon if the rumors were true, but she was involved heavily in providing succor across the Multiverse. Her focus was on going to contested worlds and helping with the rebuilding, providing aid, comfort, and protection for those that had been devastated by the wanton destruction of the dungeon creatures; providing a home for those that lost theirs. This resonated with Jake, as his desire for a home and family was the primary drive for personal improvement, and he would work hard to help others, as well.

Still, Jake knew that at the end of the day, only strength mattered against the creatures from the dungeon. Their research had taught them that for a Valkyrie, the god or goddess they prayed to would impact their abilities, though many would be almost entirely the same. It seemed that a Valkyrie of Hestia would have a theme of using sacrificial flames; flames that reduced her own health to produce various effects, from greatly damaging opponents to healing or protecting others. Her ability to protect would be higher than most other Valkyries, Hestia’s domain of home offering sanctuary for her allies.

If Jake was going to min-max this choice, or only make choices for the maximum possible amount of power, he might not choose Hestia. Powers that cost the user’s health can often be inconvenient and difficult to bring out their full power, and there appeared to be choices that would ultimately be more powerful. The problem was none of the more powerful choices were really gods or goddesses that resonated with any of Jake’s party, and some of them they had learned their pasts since the introduction of [The Framework] had been sketchy at best, and not deserving of any respect or worship in their opinions at worst.

Still, Jake thought the sacrificial flame would work well for their party, but this solidified the need for their next summon to be a true healer type; not a hybrid that does not focus on it like Jake or Ophelia. Jake had thought that perhaps someone that was good at trap and enemy detection like a ranger or rogue type might be best next, but he thought that the safety provided by a true healer might be better; until they get resurrection spells, they only had one life, after all. Still, Jake would have to live with the lottery of [The Framework] and see what he was able to choose from, especially now that he knew the demoness would veto any men being a part of the party.

Jake turned to the Valkyrie, “You looked like you wanted to say something before. What is it?” The Valkyrie gave a shy smile, and just shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. It can wait until later.”

Planning done, they would go kill some ants and return once they had enough from dismantling to create the private temple in their refuge. Jake could just feel the excitement pouring off both the demoness and valkyrie, and this was even though he knew that the demoness was far from excited to help dismantle the ants.

While Jake understood that the Valkyrie was excited, it took him a moment to realize that the demoness clearly was excited at the premise of Jake’s party growing in power. He remembered the satisfied, almost smug feeling she got when she saw how effective Ophelia was, just after being summoned. One way or another, the valkyrie was going to become stronger, and that meant by extension, so was Jake.

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