Chapter 142: No Really, The Dungeon Is Tough – Chapter 142

Akhier

So far the monthly short stories I've been writing using patron prompts have been popular enough, though I'm not sure what exactly to do with them yet. I'm considering to turn them into a short story collection once I have enough and sell them on Amazon or some such. I have something else I am considering, but I'm going to have to think about it more because it will require more work on my part.

Anyway, my Patron is doing quite well and there are a ton of chapters there to read. That includes the next two chapters which are free ( 143 and 144 ) and goes all the way to chapter 208 for the early access tiers. Suffice it to say, there is a good bit to read there.

When it comes to the two teams from upriver, Susan isn’t wrong about them. While not as decked out as the idiot from yesterday, they still have some of the “finest” pre-system gear their town has to offer. And while the 12 guys are competent enough, they aren’t up to the standards of even the crafters in the settlement. None of them has a skill level higher than ten and despite that their levels are all north of ten.

About the only thing positive someone from the settlement might say about them is that their teams are well balanced. Both teams have a healer, three front-line fighters, a mage, and a scout with a ranged attack. Though when pulling from a population of hundreds of people such things become much easier to manage.

The first team is the weaker of the two and the one risking the least. While the idiot yesterday got killed on the first floor, these guys know what to expect. Still, even being forewarned about the dangers each fight is a challenge. Even in the first goat encounter, one of their front-line fighters ends up with a heavy bruise.

When they do get to the rooms with goats of equal or greater numbers, they end up requiring a break to let the healer fix them up and then recover mana. Any more of a challenge and the healer would likely end up running out of mana all together. Still, they manage to beat the final goat room and get to the room with the berries and honey.

While none of them have a skill for it, the berries don’t seem to have a failure chance. The fact that there are a decent number of berry bushes means they end up with a decent sized haul. On the other hand, they aren’t as lucky with the honey. Luckily, even though the bits that fail to harvest do go bad, it soon after vanishes, so the team ends up with a small container of honey. That and a promise among themselves to not tell anyone about the process of harvesting it.

Goods harvested, the scout goes to take a quick peek into the next room. He stops though as at the last second his skill to find traps finally succeeds against the kobolds tripwire. After pointing that out, everyone agrees to not mess with the last couple rooms and retreats out of the dungeon.

On the way though, they do try to harvest the various herbs. Unlike the berries, though, this completely fails. The five others turn towards the scout who shrugs. He didn’t want to waste any of his skill slots on something “stupid” like a harvesting skill. Still, in the end they did end up with a decent haul of meat and a handful of coins. Coins, which they promptly hand over to the person guarding the entrance of the dungeon so they can keep all the meat, berries, and honey. 

With a population of a few hundred people and none of the pre-system infrastructure to support it, they aren’t exactly starving but it is closer than anyone wants to admit. Taxes paid, they pack all the food into a crate which the settlement kindly allowed to be stored in a cold room they set up. Then it is back into the dungeon to fight through the first floor again. The healer isn’t quite back to full yet but the first couple fights are easy enough to allow them to recover.

While this is happening, the second team is going further. They manage to beat the first floor in about the same amount of time but that isn’t because they can’t go faster. Rather, they are making sure all of them stay topped up. After harvesting the berry room clean, though, they don’t turn back. The second team might not be as strong as the original team from the town to delve the dungeon, they are still top tier for almost anywhere besides the settlement.

Their scout had spotted a net trap on the ceiling even before they had finished harvesting all the berries and now goes about taking it down. At first he had considered just disarming it but on closer inspection the whole thing looks like it could be activated by a well-placed shot. No reason to leave a potential danger like that hanging over their heads.

Once that is done, they all enter the kobold camp as a group. Of course having taken so long the kobolds are well and ready for them, hidden behind stalagmites. Both sides stand there for a moment, the team standing there behind shields and the kobolds peeking out from their cover.

The scout takes the first shot and puts everything into motion. With a stance that just screams having been in an archery club at school, the scout releases an arrow from his compound bow. While the bow itself is a little worse for wear, it isn’t like physics have completely broken down and so the arrow flies off at a decent clip. The kobolds, however, were ready for it and they all duck behind their pillars.

Not that the team expected anything else, though the scout had aimed at the healer just in case he got lucky. Still, not hitting was a part of their plan so seeing the expected result the group charges forward.

At this point the kobold’s plan shows a weak point. They had spread out, and that allowed the delvers to focus in on the kobold in front of the others. Three melee fighters on one is an easy fight for the party. Before the healer can even get halfway through his spell, the melee kobold is down.

This, however, did give enough time to the three remaining melee kobolds to regroup around the healer. Still, without a ranged attacker they at most are able to bang up the delver’s front line a little. Nothing a quick round of healing doesn’t fix up. In fact, the healer ends up requiring more time to recover mana than he does to heal them.

Thus readied they enter the last room of the first floor. In there a kobold stands beside a stone throne with four goats around them. Not completely strange, though, from the group’s reports, the kobold had been sitting on the chair previously. Still, it doesn’t change the plan all that much and so they let the scout start the fight once again.

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Without the cover, the scout’s arrow is able to land a hit. Not a good hit, mind you. If the kobold had stood still of course, it would have been a heart shot. Instead the kobold dodges out of the way and instead the arrow pierces the leather tunic and causes a heavy scratch.

The goats consider this a good enough of a signal and charge at the team. While this isn’t enough to throw any of the team’s front line off balance, the goat’s helmets with the bronze horn guards are enough to cause some real damage. Though unlike the big goat room, there are only four goats this time.

At this range, though, the scout doesn’t have much of a problem hitting a target. Especially when one of the melee fighters manages to lock a goat down. Then even with a helmet things end quickly for the goats. Even with the kobold joining the fight, things wrap up quickly, leaving the portal to the second floor open.

Of course the team isn’t full of idiots and so the scout goes to harvest the olives while they wait around for everyone to recover. Those copper horn guards can really cause a lot of damage, even through armor. In fact, while waiting to recover the group as a whole agrees that room with 9 goats, all decked out in helmets, was the hardest fight. The kobolds might have been tricky but compared to fighting nine enemies at once, it isn’t that much of a challenge.

As they are saying this though a certain someone takes note of this and makes some changes. Now the kobold in the last room will always lead their goats out to join the fight in the kobold camp. No one is privy to this change and so they blithely head onto the second floor without realizing they had just accidentally ramped up the challenge for every future delver.

On the second floor, things start to ramp up for them. In the two shepherd rooms, even without helmets the goats put up much more of a challenge. Not to mention the Axebeaks. The altered Axebeak even manages to leave a deep gash across the chest of one of the melee fighters. This not only forces the group to wait around a good half hour as the healer is forced to regen and empty their mana pool over and over, but it also nearly ruins the armor.

While their town has some basic ability to repair things, the armor isn’t ever going to be as good as it was before. Which is saying something as the thing is pre-system to begin with. Still, they continue forward with each fight, forcing them to stop and rest. Not just for the healer anymore but also because even with the healing, the melee fighters are getting more and more fatigued.

As the team reaches the top of the ramp room, the healer shakes their head. The goal had been to beat the second floor and take a peek at the third but that just isn’t in the cards for today. Their equipment is worse for wear and while he can’t heal the fatigue, the healer can very much tell it is there. Even the scout is starting to feel it.

Though the real nail in the coffin is the healer themselves. They had to empty and refill their mana pool so many times today that it is starting to hurt. While the healer isn’t certain, his gut instinct is that if he pushes too much further, he will be damaging himself in a way that a simple healing spell or time would not be able to fix.

Upon hearing this, the other four readily agree to turn around. While disappointing to not have reached their goals, a healer is worth much more than getting some ore. So with sadness in their hearts, they turn around and trudge out of the dungeon. And once outside, the other four in the group force the healer to get checked out.

Doctor of course is willing to take a look and quickly finds the problem. Not that the team’s healer wouldn’t have been able to notice the problem with someone else. This is just one of those things that is hard to see when it is affecting yourself.

Doctor sighs, “You need to work on your mana pool size. While it might seem like you can keep absorbing more mana from the atmosphere. You’ve just bumped up against the reason that isn’t actually an option. Part of absorbing mana is that you make it your own. Doing so isn’t free and so you put a part of yourself into your mana. Not too much of a problem if you don’t go too far with it.”

“However the amount of mana you can absorb is directly related to how much you can store in the first place. If you had taken it too much further, you would have started using the structure of your mana pool itself to convert the mana. If you had kept going, you would have been spending the capacity of your mana pool. That in turn would mean you had less to change the mana and so you would have spent even more of your pool faster.”

“My advice is you hold off on using your mana for a day or so. Though you should be able to tell when it is safe again. Your body isn’t exactly shy in telling you when something like this is going down.”

The healer sighs at this. While they hadn’t known exactly what was wrong, this wasn’t far off of their guess. Though the biggest disappointment for the team is that they are now stuck not being able to go back into the dungeon. Without a healer, it is doubtful they would be able to even get through half of the first floor. The only comfort is that they took so long in the dungeon they don’t have too much time left before the boat shows up to take them home.

Akhier

Also if you want to read more, my Patreon ( 143 and 144 ) has two free chapters, two more chapters for only a dollar, and even more beyond that for the early access tiers.

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