by R. A. Mejia
Mary kicks me with her foot and motions with her hand for me to bow as well. I bow from the waist and tell Kitsune, “Yes. I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to ask you to…uh...I mean… I just wanted to know what spells and skills you had so we could plan our strategy for tackling the dungeon.”
Vrax, having watched the exchange between the three of us, moves next to me and bows from the waist towards Kitsune, “Me sorry too.”
I risk a glance up from my bowed position and see that Kitsune’s eyes have lost a little of their anger. She asks, “Why are you apologizing Vrax?”
Without looking up at Kitsune, he answers, “Armon is my brood brother. He is very smart with some things. But I forget that he is also very stupid with other things. It is my responsibility to teach him good manners.”
Kitsune considers us, sighs, and says “Well, considering the circumstances, your actions are forgiven, Armon. You can’t help how you were raised any more than I can.” When I stand up straight again, I see that Kitsune has a small smile on her face. She gives me a brief bow and continues, “My family taught me to be tolerant of other people’s traditions and customs. Just because someone believes something different from me doesn’t make what they believe any less important to them.”
“I’m glad that’s all settled…”
Before I can finish my thought, the dungeon master interrupts me with a loud laugh, “YoHoHoHoHo! That whole bit was great. You people have already earned that bonus. Now you just have to survive the level.”
I roll my eyes and continue, “As I was saying. Now that that is settled. Kitsune, do you want to give us a rundown of what you can do so we can plan our strategy for the dungeon?”
Kitsune nods once and her eyes lose focus as she looks her status screen. She bites her lower lip and tilts her head slightly as if deciding something. After a moment she returns her attention to me and says, “My best skills and magic revolve around healing and providing magical protection. I have two heal spells that I can cast at a distance of up to thirty feet: [Light Heal] and [Medium Heal]. [Light Heal] restores up to sixteen health and [Medium Heal] up to twenty three points of health. Though [Medium Heal] costs more than twice the mana that the light version does. I have an ability called bone setting that lets me heal more serious wounds like broken bones, but it makes the heal spell cost more mana when active. If I ever run out of mana, I also have the skill [Healing Arts] which lets me apply poultices and bandages to wounds to heal a couple of health points. The other spells I have are [Light], [Cleanse], and [Protection from Evil]. Of those three, [Protection from Evil] is the one I’ll be using the most since it gives a defensive bonus when facing evil aligned enemies.”
I stare open mouthed at the fox woman. I think that’s one of the longest speeches I’ve heard her give. After a moment, I smile lopsidedly and tell Kitsune, “Thank you for that detailed summary of your healing skills. Do you have any combat abilities?”
Kitsune shoulders scrunch up, and she lowers her gaze as she replies, “I do have a little skill with swords, bows, and fighting with my fists. But I wouldn’t count on me fighting much or at all actually. I’m really better suited to heal from the rear of the group.”
I note her obvious embarrassment and try to reassure her, “It’s ok. Not everyone is meant to be upfront with the action. We’re not judging you. We just needed to know what you’re bringing to the group so we can plan appropriately.”
Having learned what Kitsune can do, we decide Vrax and I will be in front. Mary and Kitsune will follow behind us. Mary will fly above us with a globe of illumination in one hand to provide us light to see by and with the other hand she’ll snipe with her magic. From her rear position, Kitsune will keep track of everyone and heal anyone who gets injured. While this may seem like the easiest role since the healer is not directly participating in the fight, it’s actually the hardest. Kitsune will have to keep track of each member of the group, where the enemies are, and coordinate our fight so we’re the most effective killers of monsters we can be. Plus she still has to heal and manage her own mana reserves. Honestly, in every game I’ve ever played online, being an effective healer is never a skill I’ve managed to master. Thankfully, we form a party so it’s a bit easier for her to keep track of our health and she’ll get an even share of the experience points as we fight.
Chapter 4.5
Our strategy settled, we head down the right path outside the door of our safe room. Well, our former safe room. The door to the room closed and sealed itself a minute after we left.
Vrax to my left, the two of us walk slowly forward. Mary’s light illuminates the tunnel ahead of us for about ten feet. After that, the light fades into darkness. Thankfully, both Vrax and I have the [Darkvision] ability which lets us see another twenty feet into the darkness. It gives us both a more comfortable rage of sight. Hopefully, it’ll also give us an edge against any monsters we come across.
The tunnel itself is unremarkable. The walls are a flat slate grey and obviously artificially made. No natural tunnel would have walls or a ceiling this smooth. After only about ten minutes of walking, we come across our first monster. Vrax is the first to notice something. His left hand on the hilt of the shortsword belted at his waist, he raises his right hand into the air, silently indicating we should stop. I give him a questioning look, but he turns his head to the left and right. I realize he’s listening for something. I follow suit and close my eyes and focus my mind on the sounds around me. Thanks to my recently acquired [Listening] skill, I have slightly better hearing. I hear the small sounds of my companions. Their breathing, the flutter of fairy wings, the rustling of clothing. I push past those sounds to try to find the sounds farther out and hear a ‘scritch, scritch’ sound. My eyes pop open. I dismiss the notification telling me my [Listening] skill has increased and see Vrax staring at me. He nods once and slowly pulls the shortsword from his scabbard. I open my [Inventory] and equip the spear we took off the man who was guarding us in the underground city of thieves. It’s not nearly as impressive as the spears Dyblex made me, but it does between two to six points of damage on its own. However, with my current strength and the bonus, I get from my [Spear Mastery] skill, I should do between six to ten points of damage per successful hit.
Any other thoughts flee my mind as I catch sight of the first monster and stop dead in my tracks. Still cloaked in darkness, the monster is facing me and appears in shades of white and grey to my [Darkvision]. Its form is familiar yet disturbingly different. It’s not until it starts to move and I can see its body in profile that I realize why. It’s a skeleton. It’s the moving skeletal figure of some animal. I can only estimate from this distance but it looks like it’s about the height of my knee, has four legs, a tail, and a skull that with two sets of long buck teeth that come together like the ends of a beak. It doesn’t seem to have noticed us yet, or maybe its undead nature doesn’t allow for higher brain functions. Either way, we have an advantage.
I look to my left and see Vrax disappear from view as he leaves the pool of light cast by Mary’s ball of illumination and uses his [Sneak] skill. We’d already worked out that I’d grab the attention of whatever monsters we ran into here and give Vrax a chance to backstab it while it was focused on me. So, I start to move forward, the skeletal monster only twenty feet away now. The moment the slightest bit of light from Mary’s globe of illumination hits the skeleton it turns its skull towards us and attacks.
I stab forward with my spear using both hands to give my thrust extra power. The sharp tip of the weapon skitters off the skeletal head of the creature, stopping its forward movement and causing it to wobble to the right slightly.
Damage dealt: 4
I’m surprised by the low damage, but I ready my spear for another strike. Before I can attack, Vrax materializes behind the skeletal creature and strikes with his shortsword. His blade hits the back of the monster. Though it’s more accurate to say it hits the creature’s exposed spinal column.
Vrax deal
s damage: 5
It’s even more surprising that Vrax’s [Backstab] does so little damage. From the look on Vrax’s face, he’s as surprised as I am. He’s so surprised that the skeletal creature is able to spin around and bite him on his forearm. Vrax raises his blade to attack again, but before his shortsword can descend, three purple bolts of arcane energy fly into the monster.
Mary deals damage: 3 (force damage)
Mary deals damage: 5 (force damage)
Mary deals damage: 3 (force damage)
You've helped kill a Giant Skeletal Rat lvl. 4. You receive 6 XP.
As the last magic missile hits the Skeletal Rat, it shutters, takes one step back from Vrax and collapses into a pile of bones. The fight over, Kitsune walks past me and takes Vrax’s arm in her hands. A green glow envelops the place the skeletal rat bit. After Kitsune releases him, he swings his arm a few times, apparently no worse for wear. Vrax bows his head slightly in thanks and smiles at Kitsune. Kitsune pats his head once in acknowledgment and turns to me.
“Were you hurt at all during the fight?” she asks. I shake my head, letting her know I wasn’t hurt. Having attended to the group's injuries, she sits down, cross legged, next to the remains of the monster and closes her eyes.
It only takes me a moment to realize that Kitsune is resting and recovering the mana she spent. I think it’s a good idea and call out to the rest of the group, “Let’s recover and talk about the fight.” I take a quick look behind and in front of us to make sure nothing is waiting to attack us before I sit down, my back resting against the stone wall. Mary sticks the light globe to the ceiling above us and flies down to land on my shoulder. The remains of the monster disappear in a flash of light, and Vrax loots what remains before sitting down across from me.
“Get anything good?” I ask him.
He shakes his head and answers, “No. Only rat teeth.”
I nod towards him in acknowledgment. Then speaking to everyone, I begin the rundown of our fight, “Ok. We’ve had our first fight in this dungeon, and it went well. We came away with only one minor injury that was fixed by our healer.” Kitsune’s eyes still closed, she doesn’t acknowledge the statement, and I continue, “From the damage log, our MVP of the fight is Mary. She did the bulk of the damage with a single magic missile spell. Good work Mary.”
Vrax and I clap softly. Mary hops down from my shoulder to a space on the floor between Vrax and I. She takes a single bow, holds up an imaginary statue and says, “I’d like to thank the academy for this award. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my backup crew.”
I laugh at her impromptu act, but Vrax looks at her with puzzlement. I think about explaining the reference but decide it will take too long and instead say, “Ok. Thanks for that Mary but we have a real problem if your magic missile is doing the most damage.” She huffs at me for interrupting her fun but doesn’t say anything, so I continue speaking to everyone, “I should have done between six to ten points of damage but only did four. With a good backstab I’ve seen Vrax do over twenty points of damage but this time he only did five. What gives?”
I expect Mary to answer my question since she used to be an all knowing fairy guide but Vrax speaks up first, “We unlucky?” I motion for him to continue and he explains, “Sometimes when on a hunt, my best attacks do not work. I get unlucky and have to fight an animal that blades have trouble cutting. They have a tough hide or special power. Only thing the hunting party can do is change weapons or run away.”
Vrax’s description of ‘blades have trouble cutting’ is exactly what happened during the fight. My spear had nothing to pierce or cut. The situation also tickles my memory, and I vaguely remember something like this happening when we fought the Vinething in the Restrian dungeon. I look down at Mary and ask, “Is that the resistance thing you were talking about?”
She smiles at me and flies up into the air and pats me on the head and says in a high pitched voice like she’s petting a dog, “Who’s a good student? Who’s a good student? You are.” I playfully swat at her, but she dodges my hand and continues, “Yeah, this is that ‘resistance thing.' I’m glad you remember something I told you about. I told you that some monsters are going to take less damage from certain weapons or spells. This is one of those times. Undead monsters require particular tactics if we’re going to be fighting them.”
Now that she mentions it, I do recall something like this from some of the games I’ve played. In some games, the undead could only be harmed by silver or magical weapons. In other games, they could be hurt by anything but took less damage from some types of weapons. In just about all games, they took extra damage from healing or holy spells though.
“So, we should be using silver weapons and holy spells?” I ask Mary.
Instead of Mary answering, Kitsune opens her eyes and says, “The undead are almost universally harmed by holy spells. Only certain undead creatures like vampires take extra damage from silver weapons. I think you’re confusing the undead with werewolves.”
Curious about why she’s only speaking now I ask, “Oh, so you’re back with us? I thought you fell asleep.”
She smiles at me, and I notice her canine teeth give her smile a bit of a menacing look, “Sorry, I was meditating. It’s an ability that lets me recover my mana at a faster rate, but it puts me in a bit of a trance. I can hear what’s happening around me, but I can’t interact with the world until I break off the meditation.”
That sounds like an interesting ability. It would help any spellcaster who relies on mana.
Before I can ask anything, she says, “Sorry, I know you’re going to ask if I can teach it to you but I can’t. It’s a clan ability. I could only teach it to someone who’s a member of the fox clan.”
Oh well. Didn’t think it would be that easy.
Mary sees my disappointment and flies over to me. She pats my knee and tells me, “Don’t worry. There are skills like that you can learn at the Mage’s Guild.” Then looking around the dungeon, she shrugs and adds, “Assuming we’re all not murdered gruesomely in this dungeon that is.”
The high pitched voice of the dungeon master echo’s in the tunnel, “Hey! I heard that. I don’t murder people in my dungeon. I provide reasonable challenges for people that make their way through my dungeon’s levels. You think it’s just a coincidence that you only fought one Giant Skeletal Rat? I could have swarmed you with hundreds of them if I wanted to kill you.”
I think we offended our host and it’s always best to keep the guy who can murder you in your sleep happy. So I look up and say, “Sorry. We didn’t mean to imply that you ran the kind of dungeon that killed its explorers willy-nilly.”
I hear a harrumph, but the dungeon master doesn’t respond otherwise. I look back at my team and ask, “So, any suggestions on how to better fight these skeletons?”
Mary answers with a superior look, “Magic. As far as I know, most low level undead don’t have any resistances to magic. That’s why my one magic missile spell did twice the damage of your and Vrax’s weapons.”
“Blunt weapons,” Kitsune suggests, “If you’re using slashing or piercing weapons you’ll only do half damage to skeletons. You need to use blunt weapons on them.”
Thinking of the two weapons we stole, I tell Kitsune, “I only have a spear and a sword. I don’t have any clubs or maces.”
Vrax nods at my statement and adds, “I only have a sword and knife.”
Mary flies up to me and hits me hard in the shoulder. I cry out, “Ow. What’d you do that for? So far your suggestion to use magic is winning. I’d think you’d be happy about that.”
She smiles, then hits me in the shoulder again before saying, “I am happy to be winning, but I’m also telling you how you and Vrax can do more damage to the skeletons.”
It takes me a moment to realize what she’s ‘telling me’ with her punches. I look over at Vrax and see a confused look on his reptilian face and tell him, “I think she means our Kung Fu moves.” Vrax’s expression
brightens, and he hops up onto his feet. He starts to punch and kick the air while saying in a high pitch, “Waaaah!”
I laugh at my friend’s antics. I knew I shouldn’t have told him about Bruce Lee.
My kobold friend turns at the sound of my laughter, and he stops punching and kicking. He makes a fist in the air and places his other clawed hand on top of it. He then lowers his head slightly and bows from the waist formally and says, “Call me Kung Fu Kobold.”
I roll onto my back and have to hold my sides as my laughter doubles. Mary starts to laugh as well once she hears Vrax’s new title. I can’t stop imagining Vrax in the martial arts films from earth. The thought of my friend, who only comes up to my waist, flying through the air and kicking the butts of all the cheesy bad guys in those movies makes me roar with laughter. I say between gasps of air, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Kobold.” Mary laughs and adds, “Enter the Kobold Dragon.”
Mary and I laugh and come up with more reworked movie titles while Vrax and Kitsune silently watch us in confusion: Fist of the Kobold Legend, Scaled Fists of Fury, Iron Kobold, and Once Upon a Time in Terra. Our laughter dies down as we run out of titles. As I catch my breath, I sit back up and say, “Ok, that’s enough joking.”