by Dakota Krout
After waiting a minute and a half for his mana to fully recover, Joe placed his scepter into the ritual and activated it. There were a few arcs of power–showing a non-inconsequential instability–but nothing that destroyed or delayed the ritual. It was really too bad that making a ritual on a chalkboard didn’t let him use his occultist profession skill to see how accurate it was. He needed to work on his penmanship so he could use ink and paper. Joe shook his head, returning his thoughts to the ritual. Twenty seconds later, it was complete.
New ritual created! Would you like to name this ritual? Yes / No.
“Stamina poison,” Joe said out loud, making the nearest people glance at him curiously before shuffling away from the man who had caused an explosion for no good reason.
That name is already in use. To avoid confusion, please try again.
Maybe this was why everything seemed to have grand names as they became rarer? Like ‘Heavenly Breath Elixir’ because the system didn’t allow for common-sense name schemes? He had a few alchemists and crafters to apologize to. “Ritual of Poisoned Vitality?”
Name accepted!
Joe looked at the others who had decided to come within ten feet of him now that the ritual was complete and didn’t appear that it was going to randomly detonate. That might be the real reason. Bard looked at Joe, nodding at the obvious signs of power he was displaying. “That’s some pretty makeup ye got on. Ye look like the main character from that sappy vampire movie.”
“What are you talking about?” Joe looked around at the smirking faces. “Anyone? Please explain.”
Alexis took pity on him, pulling out a small mirror and handing it over. Joe looked at his reflection in shock. He looked like the victim of a glitter bomb, if glitter was the size of a quarter. “No! I’m sparkly! Stupid spell, why do you have to be so effective! I’d toss it away right now otherwise!”
“Oh? What does it do?” Poppy asked after smothering his chuckles.
“Stab me,” Joe replied unenthusiastically, mind in shock from his pretty spell.
“What? Are you sure?” The Duelist seemed shocked at this command.
“Do it.”
“Alright.” Poppy pulled out his rapier and stabbed Joe in the arm. A splash of blood shot out; he had hit an artery with his attack.
Joe screeched and slapped himself with a healing spell, glaring at Poppy for a moment. His eyes widened, followed by rolling them hard. “Right. You have amazing armor penetration, don’t you? For feces’ sake, Poppy. Bard, can you please hit me?”
Bard shrugged and swung an axe at Joe, which hit his arm and skid off with a tinkling sound like a bunch of little bells ringing. “Look at tha’! Ye even sound pretty.”
“…I hate that I love this spell.” Joe held out his unblemished arm. “It's a magical defense that allows me to use mana to make armor for myself. Basically, a force field.”
“A force field that does jack against me,” Poppy smugly stated, twirling his rapier in a fancy flourish. Joe showed him a rude hand gesture in reply.
“It blocks physical, magical, and elemental damage. The armor is also apparently still weak against armor penetration, so that’s fun. It did block some of the damage, but his rapier still got through. Obviously.” Joe rubbed at his arm, where he was still feeling some phantom pain from the unexpected stab. Well. The stab itself wasn’t unexpected, but the damage was.
“That’s our Mr. Pokey for you!” Jaxon clapped Poppy on the back, causing him to stumble. His words caused the others to laugh softly, but Poppy vehemently opposed the nickname instantly. Of course, this simply made it stick. “Can we get going? I’d like a chance to defeat some Ghouls without becoming a martyr. The dungeon will vanish in an hour, so…”
“It’ll stop letting people in at the end of the timer, but it’ll stay active until everyone is out,” Alexis informed the group. “We really don’t want to be the last group in, though; remember how the enemies got smarter when there were fewer instances?”
“Yup, yup. Let’s make like an egg and scramble,” Bard quipped, making everyone but Joe laugh.
“Oh come on! My ‘book it’ joke was better than that, and I didn’t even get a pity chuckle!” Joe complained empathetically. Sadly, he was ignored in favor of the high-charisma Skald. Joe grumpily followed the others to the dungeon and, from the perspective of people outside the gate, seemed to vanish as he crossed the threshold.
~ Chapter Twenty-five ~
“Alright, same strategy as before?” Joe looked around to confirm with the others, but Jaxon raised a hand. “Not the fire and poison strategy, I meant the ‘pick them off one by one’ version.” Jaxon lowered his hand, seemingly very relieved.
“The Ghouls went up a level.” Alexis had moved around the corner, scouting ahead for the team. “I think it’s a good idea to draw them elsewhere. Can you imagine what would have happened if we fought them under the trees like that? We would have been swarmed by spiders and Ghouls all in one go.”
“What we really need is a building with two exits that can be blockaded. Then we can pull the majority of the Ghouls into it and let the poison do its work.” The group looked surprised that it was Jaxon saying these things, but then… his intelligence had never been in question.
“Good call, Jax.” Joe nodded his appreciation. “Has anyone seen anything like that?”
“Ye know, it might be ah bit ironic, but ah think tae smithy would work.” Bard pointed toward the corner of town the smithy had been located in before being transformed.
“Let’s do that then.” Joe started carefully walking toward the smithy, doing his best not to alert the horde of Ghouls patrolling nearby. It was a bit strange to him that the dungeon entrance was right next to the boss, as well as the highest concentration of monsters. They had walked for a little over a block when a roaming Ghoul turned the corner in front of them. Both the adventurers and the monster stopped, startled by this turn of events. The Ghoul recovered first, and a horrific smile coated in drool crossed its face, showing knife-sharp teeth. It charged them, obviously expecting an easy meal.
“Allow me, please,” Jaxon strode forward calmly. When they reached the halfway point between each other, the Monk shot forward at high speed. Jaxon ducked under a wild swipe that–past experience informed him–would have torn his head off. He struck the wood-covered elbow of the Ghoul, once, twice, and on the third blow, a thick blade sunk into the joint. The Ghoul hissed in pain which turned into a shriek of rage as Jaxon activated his ability. The blade had severed a tendon, so when the joint twisted… its entire forearm popped off.
“That works excellently.” Jaxon seemed to be treating this all very academically, even as roots wiggled into the severed arm and pulled it back together. “Hmm. I guess I need to work faster, else my treatment won’t be very effective.” Joe’s group remained watchful, ready to help if needed, but it seemed that Jaxon had this duel well in hand. The Monk avoided devastating blows that shattered cobblestone, repeatedly punching the Ghoul in the neck. Every third blow the blade would jump out and penetrate through the wood protecting this weak point.
Jaxon suddenly jumped back and turned around, putting his back to the surprised Ghoul. “Fifteen blows to get to this point. Far too long. How can I improve my undead fighting capabilities?”
“Jaxon!” Bard barked. “Thing’s not down!”
“Hmm? Oh, right.” Jaxon activated his ‘adjust’ skill with a snap, and as the Ghoul reared back to attack… its head twisted and tore off. One of the best things about fighting undead enemies was that no blood sprayed out, but it was still shocking to see. Joe jumped forward and tackled Jaxon to the ground as the headless Ghoul continued to swing, missing and trying again. “What in the…? I tore its head off!”
“Right, but the armor is alive, too,” Poppy stated as the armor made another wild swing.
“No, I mean I was only expecting the neck to snap. I didn’t hit many tendons that time,” Jaxon explained as he hopped to his feet.
> “Must have been extra rotten. Stand back!” Alexis tossed a small orb that exploded into a cloud of poison around the armor, eating away at it and seemingly rotting it to pulp within thirty seconds.
“The relationship must be more symbiotic than expected.” Jaxon looked at the remains of the Ghoul, curiosity filling his eyes. “Before now, we have always either destroyed the Ghoul or the armor entirely. I wonder how much they actually feed off each other.”
“Let’s postulate on the biosphere balance of cursed dungeons at a later date, shall we?” Poppy pat the Monk on his back like a dog as they continued onward. Only Alexis and Jaxon had gained experience from the fight, once again reminding Joe to treat every battle like he was the one fighting it. They continued on, having to stop and fight three more times, only coming close to death in one of them.
There were three Ghouls, and they seemed to work well together. They had jumped out in ambush as the group approached the smithy, and only Joe’s high perception saved the team from losing at least one member just as combat started. The three Ghouls constantly attacked the same person, only deviating from their intended target if they needed to block a blow. Whoever was fighting them had to hold off all three while the others did their best to damage and distract them.
When all three of the Ghouls turned their attention to Bard, Alexis abruptly shouted, “Bard, get ready to hold your breath! Joe, get ready to heal Bard! Sorry, sweetie!” She threw one of her prepared orbs, and a nova of poison exploded from it with a ringing *pop*. All four combatants were slightly hidden in the haze of toxins, taking damage at a high rate. The wooden legs of the Ghouls gave out just as Bard began coughing violently.
Joe cast heal with one hand while casting acid spray with the other. The acid coated the Ghouls, finishing off the heavily damaged armor while the healing spell latched onto Bard and propped his health up through the damage the poison inflicted. Jaxon and Poppy closed quickly, stabbing the now-vulnerable Ghouls and quickly ending combat. Joe switched over to using Cleanse, directly removing the poison from Bard’s system.
“I’m so sorry! It was the only way to finish them quickly!” Alexis was wringing her hands, waiting for Bard to stop hacking up a lung.
“Ah, now that is love.” Jaxon leaned on Poppy and wrapped his arm–covered in specks of rotting meat–around the Duelist. “Understanding your partner so well that you can include them in your attacks, knowing that at the end of it, they will have persevered. Beautiful. Truly touching, that level of trust.”
Poppy shrugged off the filthy arm that was staining his clothes but nodded along with his words. “You have a point, Jaxon. Hey, Joe, you wanna peek in the building and let us know it there is anything we should know about?”
“Can do.” Joe went up to the door, peeking through the oversized keyhole. His eyes widened, and he became as silent as possible. Gulping, he activated intrusive scan and did his best to remember the information he saw.
Name: Betrayer. Class: Dungeon Boss. Title: Cursed Blacksmith.
Highest stat: Constitution.
Ongoing effects: Agony. Shattering Blows. Forced Servitude. Jailor.
Joe shuddered and reeled backward as the smith seemed to stiffen, slowly turning toward him. Joe instantly stopped using his scan and began running back to his group. “Hey, guys… this is… there is a boss monster in there. The smith is a boss, now.”
“Oh,” Alexis was the first to speak. “It kinda makes sense. The bear was a raid boss, right? Do you think we can beat the smith?”
Joe was confused by her easy acceptance of another boss existing in the dungeon. “I… it will be easier than the bear, for sure.”
“Then let’s do it.” Alexis looked around at the others, but they only nodded at her.
Bard nudged Joe as he passed him. “Looks like tae party leader spot is still undecided, eh, Joe?”
“Not cool, man.” Joe waited until Bard passed him, then kicked him lightly in the butt. He grinned at Bard as he turned around with an aggrieved look. “Better watch yourself, I can kick your butt any time I want.”
“Boy, ye better watch yerself,” Bard growled playfully in return. “Yer funny, but looks aren’t everything.”
“Guys! Focus, please!” Poppy’s words brought them back to reality. Or, well, back to the game. Alexis went up to one of the holes in the wall that must have been a ventilation shaft, opening a small cask and stuffing it in. The gurgle of running liquid reached their ears, and after a few moments, a hacking cough came from the interior of the building. At first, they thought that the cough was powerful enough to shake the entire structure, but then they realized it was something else as a shockwave of pain washed over them.
“What in the…?” Bard shuddered as the strange pain passed.
“You’ve got a pretty mouth,” Jaxon whispered almost lovingly into the Skald’s ear.
Bard eyed the Monk. “Jax, that might be yer sucky charisma talking, but ah will straight up slap ye if ye say that again.”
“I think that pain was the effect ‘agony’ that he has going,” Joe told the others, unaware of the side conversation happening. The door to the smithy was blasted out into the street, entirely ripped off its hinges from a single attack. A tortured scream filled the air as the now-eight-foot-tall smith shambled out. He had clinking chains all over his body, connected at various points directly to his skin. It created a sick sort of armor, a chainmail bodysuit fused to his flesh. A hammer was dragging behind him, so heavy that it left a gouge in the earth as he stumbled forward. Various colored needle-legged spiders scuttled across his skin, but it didn’t seem that they were there to attack intruders. No, they were doing… something… directly to the smith.
“His health pool is massive,” Alexis announced after staring at the smith for a long second, obviously using a skill. “He took several hundred damage from the poison in there, and there is only the tiniest chunk missing from his health bar.”
“Constitution is his highest stat; I don’t know much else about the way he fights. He has a few active effects, but I think ‘agony’, ‘shattering blows’, and ‘jailor’ are the ones he can use on us,” Joe quickly informed the others as the smith’s madly rolling eyes finally landed and focused on them. “Don’t know what they do, though.”
“Ahm sure we will find out. Gonna boost our damage real quick; try hard not ta get hit. That’d be bad,” Bard muttered as he held both axes out in front of himself. “Victory or death!”
Damage dealt and received increased by 25%!
“Oh, that’s just wrong.” Joe winced as the smith swung his hammer around at a speed he could barely see. It was like fighting the bear all over again. Poppy dropped to his knees to avoid the boulder of black metal, while Jaxon jumped over it and flattened himself in the air to increase hang-time. Bard was too far away to be hit, but he closed the distance quickly and joined in on attacking the oversized smith. Blood poured out of the boss, showing that unlike the other monsters in the area, he was a living being.
“Oh, abyss yes.” Alexis opened fire with her crossbows, missing both shots. Joe looked at her with open-mouthed concern, even as he created a shadow spike that impaled the Betrayer. “Just, ah, need to get closer. My crossbow skill is only Novice…”
Joe realized that anytime she had been attacking something, it had basically been at point blank range. “Oh, you are sneaky. How did I not notice that?”
His inattention was costing them; Bard took a solid hit to the chest that audibly cracked several ribs, dropping him to just below half health. Luckily, that was the first damage their team had taken, so Joe was able to start healing him right away. He was a healer before anything else, dang it! Joe watched as Jaxon’s attacks were blocked by the smith’s giant hands, but it seemed that Jaxon didn’t mind too much. After his blade had poked into the thick skin of the smith on his third consecutive strike, Jaxon winked, and the finger he had been exclusively hitting twisted and broke.
A deep bellow of pain exited the
Betrayer, and a wave of agony washed over all of them. Poppy shuddered, stabilizing as a healing spell splashed against him. “Agony must take a portion of the damage we do to him in a given amount of time and return it to us! Looks like mostly magical damage with a bit of true damage mixed in! Watch out for that!”
Joe realized that the others must be having a much harder time with the agony skill than he was if their health bars were any indication. Joe’s eyes flicked to his shield, noticing that it had already dropped ninety points during this fight. So it was protecting him, there was just an extra type of damage involved that the shield didn’t counter. Joe started circling to the other side of the street as the battle between the physical types raged on. He wasn’t trying to run; Joe simply had a very specific goal in mind. When he got to the spot where the battle had started, he dipped down and touched his taglock to a small pool of blood.
Final ingredient added! Activate ‘Ritual of Poisoned Vitality’? Yes / No.
Joe tapped yes, and a beam of light shot from his scepter and onto the cursed smith. The boss paused for a moment, allowing Poppy to roll away from an attack that would have otherwise crushed him. A brightly glowing, illusionary ritual circle appeared under the smith’s feet, and he seemed to become enraged as the light and ritual sank into him. He stomped at the circle, howling as his body took on a sickly green tinge. When his tantrum did nothing, he turned furious eyes on Joe and charged straight at him.
“Oh, fecal matter.” Joe tried to get out of the way, but his physical stats were nowhere near the Betrayer’s. The hammer came down on him, driving him a half-foot into the ground like a tent stake. Joe lay there, stunned, as the smith seemed to grunt in approval and charge at someone else. The Ritualist coughed up a bit of blood then quickly healed himself. Not too much of the damage had made it through, but his Exquisite Shell had been utterly annihilated. Sure, it had been weakened by the waves of agony, but the Betrayer had smashed through the rest of it with a single attack. Joe felt much less cocky about his Novice-ranked magical protection right now.