Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Between a Rock…

The peaceful silence of the dungeon was rapidly being disturbed, as a certain fox sprinted down an unfeasibly long hallway, screaming loud enough to wake the dead as the mechanical clacking of insect carapace against the cold stone floors chased after her.

Her plan could not have went much worse than it had, the useless mage now struggling to outrun an entire party of very aggroed bugs, not a single thought in her head about how to deal with more than one of them at a time.

She had Shock, but the duration was so low she couldn’t keep more than two of them locked down at a time. And Sap was even more useless, as she doubted they needed MP to use that massive sword limbs they all sported.

“Silk, do something!!”

“C-C-Chk?! Chkchk???”

They were, frankly, a bit bewildered on what she expected them to do about this.

“I-I don’t know, just s-slow them down? Please?!”

The spider hopped onto her shoulder, mandibles spreading as it tried to stop shaking from fear long enough to launch globs of webbing behind them, a few stray shots striking the larger bugs as they stuck hot to their heels.

The return fire did slow their advance a bit, giving the duo the slightest patch of breathing room as they kept fleeing the swarm.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have much in the way of places to escape to.

And this finally sunk in as they reached the main chamber once again, the clattering footsteps behind them quickly getting louder as they paused, trying to think of some way to deal with them.

She could keep running down another passage, but every other route out from here was likely to be infested by more monsters like these. And if she got pinched between two groups… there was no running away from that without kissing her unique loot goodbye.

But… there was one path that definitely lacked any additional enemies.

And right as the Insectoid Soldiers emerged from the hallway after them both, the fox and spider were just turning the corner again, back down the first hallway they’d explored.

This path was much windier, the constant weaving back and forth making it harder for a group to keep up with them, leaving plenty of time to build up more ground between them, her one idea for getting out of this hatching in her mind as she ran.

Back, forth, back, forth, swaying side to side as she ran, the constant swaying leaving poor Silk spinning and dizzy as she wove through the passageway, sprinting for the room ahead.

When she finally reached it again, it was just like she’d left it. Massive and empty, with an opened treasure chest directly opposite them.

Wasting no time, she kept running, staying against the right wall as she moved to the other end of the room, reaching the chest again right as their pursuers entered the room after them.

They were all in various states of being webbed up, a couple legs not able to bend correctly and some of their eyes covered and useless, all six of them looking vastly more pissed off than they had been earlier.

As they entered and spotted their target, they spread out a bit, slowing down just slightly as they waited to see what she would do.

They wanted to wait? Well, she was happy to provide a bit of encouragement.

“Sap!”

The spell blazed off of her staff, not really aimed at any of them as much as it was to get their attention. And in that respect, the harmless MP drain worked wonderfully, the bolt missing entirely as it whizzed off into the wall, the six armored bugs taking the apparent attack as cause to charge in before they were picked off from afar.

They made a dead sprint straight for her… that lined up directly with the center of the room, just like she’d planned.

The two in front had a head start, being the least webbed-up of their band. And swords flashing, they made a beeline right towards the mage that they’d caught off guard in their domain-

-and promptly vanished into thin air, both of them sinking through the floor below their feet, going too fast to stop themselves from plummeting through the illusory floor to certain death below.

Bewildered by what had happened to their vanguard, the remaining mantises tried to skid to a halt, but a third one of them was too slow to react, losing their footing right at the edge of the obscured hole and falling in right after them.

Only one spell used, and she’d already dealt with half of them. Efficient.

However, the other three were now extremely aware of the deathtrap she was hiding behind, and they gingerly edged forward, tapping their bladed limbs against the floor to check their footing as they advanced at a snail’s pace.

Her initial trick expended, she was now stuck as the remnants of the enemy party closed in on her carefully.

But… they’d gone from full on aggression to carefully, cautious steps, two of them coming from the right side while the lone final mantis wrapped around from the left. And if they were going to separate like this, she could work with that. After all, they were still pressed up against the massive trap hole that had dealt with three of them for her.

She just needed to provide a bit of encouragement for them to join their friends.

“Shock!”

The dull lightning arced towards the lone bug, their eyes fixed on the attack but well aware their footing wasn’t wide enough to try dodging it at all, simply resigning themselves to the strike landing true, dispersing over their glossy carapace as they were stunned in place on the ledge.

Monica pumped her fist excitedly, wasting no time as she rushed over to the immobilized mantis, pumping a few more Shocks into it as she approached to keep it from even thinking of retaliating.

Placing her hands against the widest parts of it she could find, and making sure it was still stunned, she and Silk both shoved with their full body weights. They scooted the poor thing along the mossy floor, further and further from the wall, until gravity finally took over and claimed them, catching one last glimpse of them as they tipped over into the death pit like the others had before it.

Only two more of them remained, and they were both still directly opposite of her, trying to move around to her faster as they watched another of their number dispatched without being able to fight back. This last pair was staying smart however, and made sure to stay together rather than trying to come at her from opposite angles and let her have the time to stun and roll them in separately.

That was annoying… she could keep two of them stunned at the same time, but only if that was all she was doing. There wouldn’t be an opening to get one of them tossed in before the other killed her.

But it also gave her time to stall them. The fox scooted around the hole in the opposite direction of the mantises, keeping the full breadth of the hole between them. Confused, they tried to reverse their own direction, only for Monica to do the same, the bugs quickly realizing they could do little other than keep her stuck in the room with the pair of them.

“Mrrr… persistent little things, huh? Hey, Silk, you speak bug, right?”

“...Chk? Chkchk chk chkchkchk...”

“What do you mean only insane people try and talk to monsters? Fine, no talking then. How about…”

She crouched low, whispering the idea to her companion, who nodded along reluctantly, agreeing to it.

The other two bugs looked at each other, seemingly safe for the time being as they simply waited on the opposite side of the room, annoyed and perplexed at being refused any kind of reasonable fight.

“Shock!”

Waiting for an instant that the pair weren’t looking at her, Monica threw out another of her signature spells, thing blue electricity crossing the distance faster than they could react, freezing one of them in place… not that they were really moving much to begin with. A second projectile flew right after the first, aiming right at the same mantis that had been locked down by her Shock. But for once, this just wasn’t just a followup Shock.

It was a long, fibrous shot of webbing, arcing right from a certain tiny spiderling.

The web hit home right as they hoped it would, splashing against the enemy bug’s midsection, hooking it like a fish on a line. And as soon as they felt it land and attach, Silk immediately began reeling their catch in, visibly straining to pull something over twice their size.

The other mantis caught on fast onto what they were going for immediately rushing up to try and sever the cord with one of its razor-thin limbs… but with only one place they could have possibly been going, they walked right into the second Shock that had been fired off, getting just as stuck in place as the other had been.

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From there, it was a quick cleanup as Monica made sure to keep Shocking each bug, alternating shots to not let them get a moment of reprieve. And with the issue of movement handled, Silk was free to keep winding one of them back, the process slow and grueling until they finally tipped over into it, prompting the spider to start trying to relax for just a moment before frantically cutting their own line as the force started pulling them in after it.

Down to one, Monica wrapped it up herself, shoving the final enemy off into the hole with a wave goodbye, watching them fall like waste into a bin.

And with the long encounter finally solved, the pair of adventurers collapsed to the floor with a loud sigh, resting back against the wall as they panted.

“Haaaa… haaaa… see? Told you it’d work…”

“Ch...Chk…!”

She gave the spider a pat on the head, feeling them nuzzle up into her palm contentedly, both of them taking a good half hour to rest their legs before setting off again.

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When they’d finally stood up again, they made their way throughout the rest of the dungeon nice and carefully, scraping up anything of value they found along the way. Chests of loot, gathering nodes littering odd rooms, and the occasional monster bits laying about for the taking, all piled into her gaping maw of an inventory.

They ran into plenty more hordes of enemies, but what was a nightmare at first quickly fell into a mechanical rhythm, Monica and Silk getting unnervingly good at luring, baiting, and dunking mantises into the metaphorical and literal trash can, the pair both drinking up EXP like water as the methodically killed off every enemy they found in the side paths.

As they cleared off the tenth nearly identical enemy group, Silk angrily shoving the last of the bugs into the pit that had become their honorary third party member Monica sat down to rest again, glancing over her status page for the first time in ages.

Sure enough, she’d leapt all the way up to Level 6 from their grinding session as the last one blinked out and poured the last little bit into her experience gauge. Looking over her stats, they’d all jumped up massively from where they’d started this dungeon at… though, of course, her STR was still weighing in at a sizable negative score. She’d be relying on pushing things in holes or into fires for a bit longer, it seemed.

A few new skills also had unlocked while the pair had been working.

[New Skill: Blowback]

- Unlock: Shove enemies 100+ times.

- Knocks a target backwards. Deals no damage.

- Distance is based on MAG.

[New Skill: Scrounger]

- Unlock: Hold 1000+ items at one time.

- Occasionally find more items from drops or at gathering nodes.

- Success rate is based on LUC.

[New Skill: Gloom Mastery I] (Gloom Mage only)

- Unlock: Cast Shock and/or Sap a total of 500+ times.

- All status ailments and drain abilities have strength/duration boosted by 100%.

- Shock no longer causes enemy stun resist to increase.

[Skill Upgrade: Gathering I -> Gathering II]

- Unlock: Collect materials 1000+ times.

- Allows user to additionally locate and gather from rare gathering nodes.

[New Skill: Tormentor]

- Unlock: Inflict ailments lasting a total of 3+ hours without attacking.

- Lowers damage dealt by -75%. Raises ailment strength/duration by 120%.

- Enemies afflicted by user build ailment resistance at 1/3rd the normal rate.

A new active skill for the first time caught her attention very quickly, but, unsurprisingly, it was still only another harmless support spell. The three after it were also extremely welcome, being rewarded for her needlessly slow, careful, exploration-driven playstyle. Shock no longer having any kind of drop off was very exciting, as several of those mantises had nearly gotten a swing off on her while they’d been cleaning up.

What really got her attention though…

Tormentor seemed a lot like Sadist that she’d picked up earlier in her fight against Silk. Though whereas the latter simply made her ailments work more often, the former actually made them stronger to begin with. And the last effect seemed to overlap, meaning anything that tried to outlast her would need a whopping nine times as much time to build immunity to her.

Which was wonderful news, that almost outweighed the fact that she was now operating in a situation where if she ever did manage to deal any damage, it would be a hair above a measly 6% of whatever the damage should have been.

Well, it seemed she was committed to her bad choices now. No going back.

Closing out of her menus once more, she scooped up Silk once more, heading back to the main room one last time, the long hallway to and from the hole room feeling strangely cozy and welcoming at this point. The foyer itself was deafeningly silent as she arrived there again.

Each and every one of the side paths had been finished off now, leaving only one route left… the massive, imposing door directly opposite the main entrance.

Whereas the entrance was made entirely of carved stone and seemed like it had been untouched for centuries, the door she was facing now was wrought entirely from bronze and gold and silver weaving together in impossibly intricate, spiderweb-like patterns atop of rich, old wood. It would have felt like the entrance to a mansion, if it hadn’t towered above her at probably twenty feet tall.

She already knew what laid beyond this door before the game had to tell her. After all, this was a dungeon, and she’d played enough games to know how dungeons had to end. She reached out one hand towards the door, resting against the cool wood and metal.

[Caution: Dungeon Boss ahead, proceed carefully.]

Just what she thought.

Past this door was the final challenge standing between her and proving she wasn’t completely useless after all.

“You ready, Silk?”

“Chkchk!”

They nodded at each other, their partnership already forged in fire (metaphorically and literally) as they steeled themselves.

And as she pulled at the massive door handle, they vanished once more, being whisked into the first real fight they’d ever be faced with on their adventure.

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