by Naosu N R
"OK, so we need to try to avoid bigger groups. And I don't have infinite mana," I warned them.
"Wait, so you are a mage then?" Fields asked, very interested.
"I saw the stun effects you did. But its hard to imagine seeing a real mage in play," Valerie voiced her thoughts.
"So can you toss fire at them or something?" Fields asked.
"Not really. Its complicated," I said shaking my head. "The important thing is we can win and tough it out on our own. But don't get in over your head. We still have to be careful."
"Right," Iverson frowned.
"Let's keep going," Valerie said.
"Right on. Let's do it," Iverson is excited because we're not dying.
(I'm down 22 mana. I'll have to be careful. Also already the others have noticed that a lot rides on my stun skill, since the batteries for the tasers are so limited. Plus, the tasers also have a much bigger cool time than my skill, which makes them impractical for stunning repeatedly. This must be why Iverson, has so many tasers hanging from his belt.)
It seems that some of the monsters in the team dungeon are different.
We ran into something called an 'ooze', which is like a slime but different. It attacks by throwing some kind of tar at us. But our clothes are free of it, once we managed the kill shot. The tar was nasty and smelled bad also, until it was gone.
When its body melted into the dungeon floor, the smell was eventually gone. Thank goodness!
We roam killed easily.
Demon cat encounter!
We slay it.
But then we ran into 3 demon cats.
They aren't the same as a house cat. But in some ways they do look similar. Its like someone took a house cat and raised in steroids to be as big as a dog, plus filled it with dark mana to be stronger and more ferocious than they should be. (They aren't all black also like superstition would suggest.) There's also something not quite right about their eyes.
But a problem we quickly discovered fighting them, is that they get half the time of a stun compared to other monsters. This meant I had to use 9 stuns total just for us to finish off the demon cats, and at the same time have way better teamwork.
Iverson took -5% health on that one.
Fields took a -3% health hit.
Valerie took a single hit of -5 health points. But she's done well so far; this is her first health hit.
The others are also a bit jealous of me for not taking damage so far. But its realistic that I couldn't possibly block 100 percent of all the damage on everyone with my umbrella damage shield enchant artifact.
We keep working.
4 slime encounter is next.
I used 7 stuns on this group. (-14 mana total).
We ended up killing 3 of them, but one ran away.
"H-hey guys look at this!" Iverson said while looting the slime remains.
He holds up a wallet. "Looks like it just ate someone's team recently.
"How horrible!" Valerie said.
"We've seen this before, but its never fun," Iverson said while poking at the wallet.
He opened it up, while its still slimy.
The wallet ID says Steve Jeffs. There's a second ID also, but that one we can't read, but suppose it to be whoever was teamed with that Jeffs guy.
Another slime group after that. (Was this a revenge group from the one that fled?) This one had 3 in it.
We killed that group with only 2 magic stuns used. Iverson used his taser. But he's now worried because 3 of his tasers only have 50% charges remaining.
"Should we go back to the entrance?" Valerie asked him.
"Jay, what do you think?" Iverson, instead asked me, rather than decide himself.
"We'll probably be OK, for a few more skirmishes," I replied.
The others quickly have to bend to me, even though they are older and more experienced than I am. This is because I have true combat strength, that they lack. Its probably harder for them to take.
But eventually it starts to work out.
We find that finding IDs of adventurers that got eaten is pretty common. This made the police team members kind of mad at the monsters and pretty riled up (which you'd expect from people that want to protect people).
"There's nothing we can do about it. It happens. And its not the first time I've seen it," I told them, after trying to get them to calm down. "Let's go," I added.
"Well I guess we'll get to inform the families of the deceased," Iverson said. He's pocketing the fallen IDs in a zip lock bag hanging from his side.
"Ugh... I hate doing that," Valerie said.
"You don't technically have to. You can turn it in as an adventurer and not a cop," I said.
They didn't like that part.
But they don't want to be the one informing the families.
If they even have families?
Some dungeon divers don't. Some do this because they have to and don't have any other way to live.
But I like the challenge and the feeling of being able to level up and get stronger down here.
We kept going forward, always guarded.
Slime by slime, kobold by kobold slowly we went through the dungeon.
Sometimes we found monsters in parties of twos, or even threes.
Another half hour passed before we had to retreat.
But something else unusual happened.
As we're going through one of the caverns, we discovered its above a valley that crosses beneath this one. And in it a party on one side is fighting another adventurer party.
"Oh my gosh," Valerie is horrified.
"That kind of stuff happens in here. Remember I warned you to only team with people you trust," Iverson is standing near Valerie.
Hm...does he like her?
They don't act like they are together. And it does seem a bit one sided. But Val sometimes stands near me and sometimes Iverson stands near her. Fields doesn't because he knows he doesn't have a chance.
"Stay low. Quit talking. If they know we're here they'll attack us to cover it up," I said.
"But we can fight them off," Iverson boasted.
"Says you. My mana tank is at 23%," I informed him. "That's not a good situation to pick a fight with."
"He's right," Val told them.
The two other cops with Val seem sort of unhappy by my remarks. But it was true.
We hid.
But no sooner did that one group end up finishing killing the party of four adventurers that they'd pinned down, one of them noticed us!
"There! They saw us! Get them!" one shouted while pointing at us.
"Oh shit. Run!" Iverson said.
I was so surprised with the instant retreat call that I struggled to keep up.
Iverson and Fields sped onward towards the exit.
We kept fleeing. We momentarily lost our pursuers but they aren't far behind us.
But then Valerie fell.
"Nooo...." she cried out falling down a ravine in a dark canyon.
Did they know this would happen? I realized both Iverson and Fields had activated their own light stick item after we'd been discovered.
Did they know that Val and I would be slower than them?
I won't have long before those guys trying to find us come this way.
Ignoring my common sense I scrambled down the side of the ravine to help Val. This ravine was kind of big and hanging off the beaten path. This was technically off the map into a whole series of inter linked pit zones that are hard to see or look or move in. When in this area the others chasing us can't really see us. But on the other side, it will be hard for me to climb out and help Val get out.
Thankfully I have prepared gear for this.
"Help! Jay! Is that you?" she called up to me.
"Quiet. You'll give away our position," I said.
I had to move slow to climb down. A lot of the rocks were sharp. And if I fell I could slide all the way to the bottom.
But even trickier was figuring out how to get out of this without
myself sliding down. The ravine goes for quite awhile, but the area Val slid down into was sort of a side crevasse.
This means she's fallen even less than I thought she would. But instead she'd hit a rock facing and bounced off it, injuring herself.
"I got pretty bruised up. My leg might be broken," she wined.
Oh shit.
This isn't good to get out of. But ironically it is a spot we can hide in well, as long as other things out there don't have the ability to see in the dark or smell us.
I'm going to have to get her out myself. And cell phones shouldn't work in here.
I worked my way forward.
Then I heard voices coming towards us.
We're well hidden. Technically.
But how well will they search off the trail?
"Val, kill the light fast, or we're dead," I said.
"But..."
"Hurry, they are going to come around that bend in a few seconds," I said while working my way forward down the ledge facing that hung over a huge drop hundreds of feet below.
"Fine..."
She killed her light.
Then we waited it out.
The enemy hunter killer party walked by. We got lucky.
They roamed their lights over the whole area, but the spot we're in, isn't easily seen from the main path. Its also not reachable without climbing a lot either which scares the crap out of me.
Plus, we could feel the wind and air coming up from the vacant area below us with all the vast space of the cavern in it, which felt eerie.
"Owww...it hurts so bad," Valerie whimpered, near me trying to be quiet unsuccessfully.
"Hey, I thought I heard something," one of the guys hunting us said.
Oh shit.
Their search lights swung back our way.
Oh no...
They are coming towards us, above and far back up on the ledge. If they swing their lights this way they might see us.
I have only one chance.
I used one of the blind charges in my enchanted flashlight on the guy near the ledge. I
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" a newly formed villain just fell to his death, a few hundred feet below us in one of the pit areas not far from us.
"What the fuck? How did that happen?" one of them said, not realizing I had caused it, or that they weren't alone.
"What happened? Why did he fall?"
"I don't know. He just...suddenly went off the edge," another said.
"Shit. I even lent him one of my combat armors. I can't even retrieve the parts," one said at the top of the ravine cliff edge.
"We'll just have to do without then," one said.
"Seriously we'd gone up this ledge a zillion times. Why did he fall here?" they chattered while looking around.
Their lights were still looking for the body of their friend and not pointed near us.
"Nothing. No movement. He's dead," one said.
"Let's get out of here then. We're lucky he wasn't holding the loot bag," one groaned.
I had to stop and rest before we could leave this spot. The advantage here is that its so hard to get too and off the trail in a way that will deny access by typical monsters or others.
I took a brief nap after wrapping up Valerie's leg. This was necessary to get mana back, so I can fight a way out with her.
[First aid skill awarded!] pinged just then.
"Whoa," I said in awe.
"What? What happened?" Val demanded.
I read the description.
The first aid skill can only be used once a day per person. It also does only +1-4 health.
At least that's what it will do at my current level. If I level it up, how much more will it do?
"How come, I can't get that skill so fast?" she wondered.
Does that mean I get skills faster as a demon lord clan member? Does this mean it will award more if leveled up?
It would appear so.
Then I had to work on getting Valerie out, partially carrying her out, which was hard.
With the two hour nap I'd already taken, we were able to get much of my mana back.
But then I had to carry Valerie piggy back the rest of the way to the entrance, which wasn't easy. We had to hide more than once also, from monsters and avoid the larger patrols.
I'm surprised that it went well. But part of why it did was because we hid off the trails so well and tried to avoid ALL encounters.
I did manage to solo two slimes using stun. But without stun I'd have died fast. And the fight wore me out. I felt lucky. The slimes in that particular area were strong that day also.
Somehow we hid again, and then stumbled our way out.
"I won't forget this Jay. You stayed with me the whole way. If you hadn't done that I would have been eaten for sure," Valerie bawled when we were near the exit.
Ping!
My status screen shows a few alerts.
Mage mail from mom demanding to know where I am. Then one from dad also.
Melanie has at least 6 mage mails, hoping I'm OK.
The clock says 12:53 AM, the next morning.
We'd been in there quite a while. I hadn't meant to stay that long.
Shit. My family will be all riled up. Its best if they don't see Valerie.
Valerie is swearing to make it up to me for saving her. Her anger makes me think she will be OK.
Eh...I almost missed one of my status screen alerts.
[+1 to my allure skill from creating genuine awe and feeling in [Valerie Rodriguez]. Also, bonus to max mana by +1. +1 to mind magic also!]
Yes!
But I find it interesting that non-level up bonus stats can be gained. These interest me the most. I'd like to keep trying for those also.
But when we got to the dungeon exit a bright light shined on us.
"Jay? Is that you? We were so worried!" Melanie said, and is there.
Valerie sort of froze up. And from the look on her face realized Melanie has feelings for me.
Mom is there also, looking really pissed off.
"You ass. We thought you were wounded or worse," she then slapped my face pretty good and stormed off.
What made it even more awkward is that Valerie was dropped off here by the other two, who left us to die. So we had to give her a ride home in the car from Melanie.
...
At the little tienda style ranchero stands, I sold our loot.
The good news is that we got a bit more since we'd been holding the loot for those other guys. But if all four of us had stayed together right up until the end, I would have made a lot less than them. This is because they didn't bring a lot of skills, so I'd had to dish out a lot of mana on the bigger fights while sort of keeping them together.
$320 income. (It would have been $80, plus, whatever else the others thought I deserved. They likely would have given me some bonus for doing more and carrying them. But on the other hand, as cops they might have been a bit arrogant.)
I ended up buying a nicer red health potion to give to Valerie and made her drink it, but only after making sure she didn't have broken bones that were out of place. (-$100)
But it seems like she might just have a bad sprain and not a broken bone, which is good news. Or is that because of using the red health potion, I wondered after the fact.
In return Val let me keep all the cash, but made me promise to buy her dinner. (Melanie didn't like that Val was acting all chummy with me, and overheard it.) In fairness as a law enforcement employed person Val's salary and health package is tons better than I'm earning. So I think she will really be OK.
Her injury I hope will get better soon. But that's all we can do for her.
...
On the way home with Melanie...
"You...you won't leave me for that other woman will you? She's pretty and you risked your life for her," Melanie asked choked up.