Ruby waves her hand and with a three syllable chant a small disc of fire forms in front of her and catches the ice spike. As the kobold mage prepares another shot, she reaches out and presses a finger into the center of the disc, stabilizing it. In her off-hand another ribbon of fire forms but at a much slower pace.
To the side the Barrais meet the two melee kobolds who don’t have shields. They get the first round of attacks in but are interrupted when the kobolds swing their maces down and a visible glow coats the weapons. Not wanting to find out what that means personally, the Barrais slide back and let the weapons slam down in front of them.
A wise decision as chips of stone are blasted away from the spot those maces hit. The floor now sports a couple of divots but the kobolds had over extended on the attack and Susan hops forward between them. A quick slice to both kobolds is enough to distract them as Jeremy continues further into the room and towards the casters in the back.
Now the center of attention for the two Susan shouts back, “They have active skills! Qi attack with their maces.”
To her sides the two kobolds make an odd croaking trill sound. Their damaged arms no longer able to hold on to the maces, it forces them to use their weapons one handed. Then to the back of the room, the kobold healer finishes its spell and a cloud of white zips across the room. The spell however isn’t aimed at the shield kobold. At the last moment it was able to redirect to the closer kobold that had just been hurt.
The white cloud lands on the kobold’s injured arm, and the bleeding stops as it forces black blood out of the wound. Susan turns around to re-engage just in time to see this and she curses, “their healer can handle poison!”
Back at the front of the room, Sammy and Jack are having a hard time with the shield kobold. It should have been easy, but anytime they start to come out on top an ice shard gets redirected at them. Ruby is doing her best to fight the kobold mage, but maintaining her shield slows her casting down. The kobold mage doesn’t have that problem as it stands next to a stalagmite and can duck behind it for cover.
Doctor shakes his head, “Don’t you have some form of counterspell?”
Ruby rolls her eyes, “Not in a practical sense. Plus look at that wand. I bet it doubles the dang things mana pool or some other nonsense. Just look at it! It has glowing runes when he uses it! My fire shield is more conservative in its mana usage than just trying to counter everything he throws.”
“Well, think of something”, Jack groans as he is forced behind Sammy’s shield again. “I can’t exactly move out and help like this. One good shot to my leg and I’m dead.”
Doctor laughs, “Just go for it. What do you think I am here for?”
Jack responds with a laugh of his own, “fair enough! If you can’t trust your healer, who can you trust?” And Jack charges out from behind Sammy.
Back with Susan, she is having some trouble with the two kobolds, but Jack is able to tip the balance. He rushes in and slams his body into the injured kobold, knocking it head over heels.
Susan takes three steps and seems to ghost through the flying kobold, leaving behind a red line across its neck. The kobold lands in a heap, unable to stand up as blood flows freely from its newly slit throat.
Jack’s words were prophetic though as the kobold mage takes the chance to slam an ice shard home into his upper leg. Already off balance from his slam attack, he goes down hard. Worse yet, the ice shard fades away, allowing gouts of blood to escape as the shard has sliced the legs major artery. He drops his cement mace and applies pressure to it while shouting for help.
Doctor shrugs and flicks his finger at Jack. No one had noticed, but since the start of the fight he had been dual channeling healing spells, one in each hand. Unlike the kobold healer’s spell, Doctor’s spell looked like a burnished pearl as it sped across the field.
When the pearl reaches Jack, it phases through his hands and dives deep into the wound, healing from the inside out. This doesn’t stop the bleeding as fast, but the results are more complete and allows Jack to get back to his feet so he can retreat to safety.
Doc slaps him on the shoulder with his now free hand, “see, that wasn’t too hard was it? Now just stay back for a bit as your blood regenerates. I have quick patch spells like the kobold used but those are better used in more dire emergencies as they eat mana like nobody’s business.”
Then at the back of the room a warbled scream draws everyone’s attention. Jeremy has reached the kobold casters and managed to sneak attack the healer, forcing it to drop its next healing spell. The kobold mage turns and flings an ice shard at him, but it explodes harmlessly on a stalagmite when he ducks behind it.
The kobold healer though hurt steps in front of the kobold mage and raises its shield. Just in time for Jeremy to pop out from behind another stalagmite on their other side. Now behind the kobold mage, he sticks his daggers deep into the shoulder joints.
The kobold mage’s arms fall useless to its side as it drops its wand and mace. The healer spins around in alarm, missing when Susan comes up behind it and she slits its throat as well. She hadn’t finished off the other kobold, but with a couple of steps she passed it by like a cloud to back up her husband.
Ruby claps and her fire shield drops, “There we go!” And then with another three syllable chant fires off a double long fire ribbon with both her hands. It hits the shield of the kobold fighting Sammy and wraps around. The kobold tries to bat the magic away, but it is too late as the ribbon constricts on it. The fire burns through the shield and back of the kobold, dropping it to the floor.
Jack takes this as a sign and charges back out. With a quick duck down he retrieves his mace and brings it up in a swing, busting the last melee kobold in the thigh. It goes down with a shrill warble but is shut up with a boot to the throat courtesy of Susan who had followed close behind. This just left the kobold mage, but without its arms the Barrais have no trouble finishing the fight.
Ruby rubs her arms, “We shouldn’t have had that much trouble.”
Jack glances over at her, “And why shouldn’t we have had trouble? That big ol’ hole in my leg wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. Plus if you count the goat they matched our numbers.”
Doctor waves his hand, “I agree with Ruby. All of us are what, level fiveish? This dungeon should be brand new and that means if the monsters aren’t level one its level two. Sure we had to traipse through the rest of this dungeon to get here and why the dungeon can get away with it but still.”
“I didn’t even gain a level from the fight. Sure, I got one earlier in the dungeon, but that doesn’t mean much. A big fight like this against even leveled opponents should always net us a level till the fifties or so. We just have to admit these dang kobolds were the underdog of this fight and did exemplary. I can’t even imagine doing this fight at level one. I know dungeon monsters can hit above their weight, but still.”
Jack looks like he is about to argue when a swirl of light attracts their attention. The other kobolds have all started to fade away like normal, but the kobold next to him is different. Jack backs away from the sudden change before his brain catches up to what is happening. “Hoooooly, it’s a real loot drop! Anyone mind if I take it?”
Everyone else is similarly shocked by this turn of events, and Doctor is the first to recover. “Go ahead, you’re the one who got stabbed. Plus if their gear is anything to go off of you’re the best choice anyway. No one else uses a mace here.” The rest of the group mumble their agreements with this.
By this point all the kobolds have finished fading away. All that is left is the usual stuff and that spiral of light. Jack steps back up to it and reaches into the swirl. After grabbing around in there a bit, he pulls his hand out holding a pair of greaves. Not just any greaves, though. These bronze greaves are perfectly fitted for him, and though they seem to lack any enchantments, the workmanship is of a high quality.
Ruby walks over, “Here, let me look. I got a spell to let us check their stats.”
Jack shrugs and holds them towards her, not willing to let them go. She facepalms and motions for him to wait a moment. From a small pouch on her waist, she pulls out a piece of chalk and draws on the floor.
While Ruby draws, she explains, “I am going to need to actually take them from you. This isn’t like my fire ribbons. I called it a spell but I have to cast it through a ritual. It will take me like five minutes to do, and your greaves need to be in the center of the circle. In fact, it is only that short because we haven’t left the dungeon. Once we leave the connection between your greaves and the dungeon would be gone and like most other rituals we would be in for at least an hour of casting. As it is I can piggyback off of the dungeon already knowing what they are.”
She finishes the ritual circle and grabs the greaves from him. Then with great care so as to not smudge the chalk, she places them in the center and sits down next to it. Light pools around her as she starts to chant. At first it almost sounds like a different language, but after the first minute any resemblance to such trappings drop away as the sounds she makes grow wilder.
While this is happening, everyone besides Jack collects the rest of the drops. Mostly leaf wrapped chunks of rabbit meat. The Barrais are focused on what they consider the real prize of their loot. The small olive tree at the back of the room. There aren’t that many olives on the tree, only a pound, but that is enough to make some oil for magical purposes. They know it takes about 12 to 14 pounds of olives to make a liter of oil, so with luck and stronger adventurers a good supply shouldn’t be too hard. Especially if the dungeon has more trees on the later floors.
Back at the ritual Ruby completes the last few sounds and the greaves glow like when they first came out of the loot spiral. Once that dims the chalk circle is gone and an info screen has popped up for everyone to see.
{Bronze Greaves
Description: A pair of greaves spawned as loot from a kobold in an unnamed dungeon. The sides are engraved to match a kobolds pseudo-scale pattern. They are perfectly fitted for the one who claimed them, Jack Hammer. It is enchantable.
Material: normal Bronze Alloy, normal goat leather
Craftsmanship: normal dungeon loot}
Jack looks at them and frowns, “well, those seem normal enough. I guess real armor being perfectly fitted for me is something.”
Then Jeremy smacks him upside the head.
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lol it's hard to know who to root for in these dungeon fights sometimes
Root for the adventurers who are in it just to dive and the dungeon. Neither Doyle nor them are villains in the story but more like rivals that will push each other further than they could have gone alone.
@Akhier wouldn't that be more of a symbiosis? They get to train and ressources needed to live. The dungeon learns how to better defend/optymise the setup and gets the energy to exist/expand. Actively trying to kill each other would be bad for either side.
@Al93we Symbiosis is a decent way to describe their relationship to an extent. However I chose to describe it as a rivalry because of the human element involved. In the end while I see their situation being symbiotic their social relationship is more of a rivalry, especially if/when the people find out Doyle is a real person and not just a generic dungeon core that hasn't awoken.
@Akhier I said symbiosis as (I assume) their aim is not to be better than each other, but so survive. So far they did not give me the impression they are trying to beat each other, they just do what they do purely 'cause they need ressources/lvls.
At least till they have other sources to sustain themselfes they are kinda forced into symbiosis. While this probably changes (especially shoukd they find out he's a former human) later, right now i'd say they have not really the leeway to be rivals.