Before Ceras could inquire of the two girls, what skills they had received, the large carved wooden door started to open inward to the room they were in, creaking slowly as if giants were pushing the large wooden frame with all their might, but because of its immense weight, it was slow to move.
The first view Ceras had of the now finished forest dungeon level, nearly made him fall over with amazement at its beauty. He had been expecting a large cavern full of grasslands and some tree as he expected from any normal forest, he could see on the surface, but what he saw in the large cavern was so much more as he wonders how they had done it in such a short space of time.
Giant trees, with roots that spread across the forest floor covered in moss and fungus, were standing proud of the ground with many of the trunks tens of meters in diameter reaching far up into the air all the way to the ceiling in the distance at the top of the cavern. As the trunks and the branches of the trees intermingled with each other, different levels were created supported on the thick branches with their own ground with grass and trees growing on the platform.
To Ceras this looked like an interweaving lattice forming platforms of land at different levels, creating a three-dimension maze of the forests within the forest. Each level of a forest within a large forest was lit by many moving, magical lights giving different moods to each level. Ceras saw some of the level bright and sunny while others had a darker creepy misty area, where it looked as if the spirits of the dead were wondering through the dark trees waiting to attack you.
In the distance, Ceras saw massive rook out-crops like rocky-mountains in the cavern intersecting the lattices of platforms produces by the trees. I am giving a wild look to the wilderness in front of him.
Everybody turned to the two girls who had worked mostly on the forest level and started to cheer and clap with an appreciation of what they had accomplished. Rhef bowed slightly with a smile on her face while Symania went red with embarrassment.
"Aren't you going to thank me two," said the voice of Hidden-Caverns to Ceras, "I had a lot to do with it as well."
"It certainly is a good job," said Ceras in wonder at what had been accomplished, "but how did you get the trees to grow so quickly."
"As the plants are part of my dungeon," said Hidden-Cavern with a note of pride again, "'I've got complete control over their growth and can accelerate it to meet my requirements. Giving you the forest that you can see in front of you."
"How do the monster get into the cavern?" question Grikius as he looked around with his dog following sniffing the air testing to see if it was safe.
"It all done by portals," said the dungeon, "I can create portals that will attract the monster we need for this environment filling up the level if I want. They can also leave if they want to once, they've gained enough experiences, against the adventures that will be coming to battle them. This is why I need you to test the level to see if the level is too hard or too easy for the journeymen levels.
"Just be careful as you can die here as the creature in the forest is out to kill you, as in the surface, but if you set you resurrection point to the dungeon, you will be able to be resurrected here rather than in the town."
All of the other, except for Ceras, nodded their head and focused on some writing only they could see, as they reset their resurrection point. Ceras resurrection point had already been changed when he became the dungeon master.
"We'll let go and do some fighting," said Rinaldo as he started to run to a tree that he could climb up onto a higher level of the forest lattices work.
"This way you idiot," shouted his twin sister as she pointed toward a large tree that had a path leading all the way to the top of the forest in the cavern, "it will be much harder."
"Great," said Rinaldo.
As Rinaldo ran back, the others ran to keep up with Rhef as she sprang onto a tree trunk that was the start of a winding pathway through many green leaves on the dark branches into the top of the forest. For Ceras with his high agility, he was able to easily leap onto the pathway and start his ascent into the forest.
When he gained some height, he was able to get a better vantage point to see the platforms of the forest from where they were climbing. On some of them he even saw, some crude dwelling as some of the monster was making the forest their home. The climb took about half an hour until they were on a large platform filled with trees that seemed to go off into a dark area of the forest with mist and dark branches gave the area an eerie feel to it.
Rhef pulled out her bow and Rinaldo and Grikius their mace from the holders on their backs while Apollo moved forward, sniffing the ground as he growled slightly. As the team of adventures moved forward, Ceras held his staff firmly in front ready to blast a monster at the first sign of movement. Soon the adventures were amongst the dark tree trunks with the mist swirling around them in uneven white patches. The dog was the first to notice the movement in the forest as his hair raised on his back spine.
"Apollo says there something out there come at speed towards us," said Grikius relaying the message from the dog, "he says it quite wolf-like but something large."
Straining his eyes, Ceras could just about make out dark shapes now in the midst of the forest seeming to run from tree to tree. The shapes of the beast had a long arm that was close to the ground as they ran with two bent legs and a large wolf-shaped head. In his vision popped up the information from the goddess.
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Werewolves
9
7
150
-
Speed attack
Several howls filled the air as the dark shapes dashed forward appearing from the darkness of the forest, showing the large body that with snots full of sharp teeth with saliva dripping off them as they opened in anticipation of biting into the soft flesh the adventures. The bright red eyes glowed in the darkness with evil intent as the werewolves leaped and bounded towards the adventures.
Ceras was the first to react as his weeks of training with Hidden-Caverns all came together as in an instant created the feedback loop for the fireball spell and shot from the end of his staff.
This time he had created a fast-moving hot ball of energy as it sped towards the closed monster hitting it head entering and blowing up inside the skull blowing its brains everywhere as the monster fell onto the ground dead.
"That's what happens when you get the perfect headshot right," said Hidden-Caverns in a smug tone as if he had done the magical attack.
"You bet," said Ceras.
As Ceras was readying another magical attack, he saw three arrows streaming through the air at the same time, all heading toward on the attacking werewolves. The three-arrows hit within inches of each other into the chest of the monster, pushing it backward, making it fall over taking away half of its health as it was on its back. Rinaldo rushed forward with Grikius and Apollo beside him to finish them off the prone werewolves, with several hits to its chest with the shape spikes in the maces.
Ceras expended his next magical fireball at a werewolf that was running towards Rinaldo exposed back, this time he used a large cooler fireball that when it hid the monster, it set it on the light. As he was just about to shout to warn Rinaldo about the attack, he saw that the lit werewolf was beating against an invisible barrier in the air. Looking around to see who had produced it, he saw Symania smiling and nodding her head in acknowledgment of his questioning look. With the werewolf prevented from moving forward if he was able to watch as the slowly burning fire dropped its health over the time it was burning until it fell to the ground still on fire.
Ceras saw one of the last two werewolves move with speed to attack Rinaldo who burled slightly and was suddenly swung his mace into its head from behind the confused monster. As the monster head turned with its body to try and hit the young man, Rinaldo burled again and hit him from the other side with a large cru
nch as blood flew everywhere.
Aiming a fireball with his staff, that was hot and fast, burning with a white flame he shot the werewolf in the chest causing it to drop as it lost all of its health when the fireball hit the ground behind it and exploded. Ceras thought maybe that was too hot as I need the explosion within the body and not wasted of the ground behind.
The last werewolf was madly running for Grikius with his dog Apollo standing to growl between the two. Ceras saw the brave dog jump forward as if his life didn't matter to attack the approaching werewolf. Wondering what the dog would do against the much large monster, he cringed as he saw the dog jump with a mouth open for the crotch, and them clamp down with a crushing noise as the werewolf howled in pain. As the werewolf was trying to hit the dog attached to him, several arrows buried themselves into his head, causing to drop dead. Apollo walked back seeming to spit something out of his mouth with distinguishing as Rinaldo looked on with horror.
The battlefield went quite as the adventures looked around the carnage they had created, and everybody smiled at once still felling the avenalin surging through their bodies.
"That was great," said Rhef with a tone of deep satisfaction in her voice of a job well done, "when do we get the money."
As she spoke the dungeon started to absorb the bodies of the werewolf into the ground with white light, leaving several silver coins for each body and some of the useful ingredients for making items with."
Grikius picked everything up and put it into his bag of holding, to sort out later, so everybody got their share. Before the team could move on more howls sounded in the distance and Ceras could see more form moving amount the tree toward them.
"Incoming," shouted Ceras as he released hundreds of ice shards from his from wooden staff's end.
As if they were a buzzing swarm of fast-moving wasp, they struck the target in the distance, causing it to howl in as its health dropped by a third.
"Let's be smart about his, "shouted Ceras tying to order the battles, "the melee attackers stand your ground and allow the range attackers to do as much damage as we can before they reach us."
"Ok"
"Fine"
With that instruction the five adventures and the dog stood in an arrow shape formation as arrows and spells hit incoming werewolves, with a bloody effect as part of their bodies were blasting off with fire or ices spell and the arrows from Rhef bow, piercing fleshy sensitive spots, causing them to drop in pain.
Celas tied to experiment with the combination of spells that he used as he mixed large flame with hot and fast small fireballs trying to get the perfect explosion within their body that would drop them in one shoot. Every time he used the magic, he ensured he felt the throb of the feedback that was making his experiences greater and increasing his magical ability.
By the time the last several attackers were within the range of the maces, sword, and staff of the adventures, Ceras had run out of mana and was fighting with his staff with his high hitting strength.
In a coordinated effort, led by Rinaldo using his time dilation ability and healing from Symania, the six managed to grind down the vicious grasping claw of the werewolf's attacks on the group ending up with several dead bodies littering the ground around them.
"Maybe I need to consider a ranged weapon," said Grikius as he saw how effective the range attacks had been at decimating the enemy before they reached the adventures.
Rinaldo nodded as well as he was considering the same need.
"Your class can do magic," said Ceras to Grikius as he looked around at the after effect of the second battle, "if you want, I can teach you a few spells for the range effects."
"That would be great," he said with a smile.
"Here big bother you can use my simple bow, now that I use a long bow," Rhef said, passing over the bow from her bag to the smiling Rinaldo.
The money and ingredients were collected by the group adding to the significantly more to the total tally of the group's earnings. Everybody sat down to either rest and recuperated any lost stamina or meditate to refill mana levels quickly.
Happy with their progress, the team of adventures moved forward into the dark forest, walking through mist keeping an eye out for more monster. After about an hour of moving forward with using her Ranger skills, they came upon a tree that would allow them to climb higher to a lighter area above. The tree provided a gentle pathway allowing the team to gain high and break through the dark canopy above into a lighter greener forest was that was full of twisted tree branches covered with grey-green lichen the added an enchanting air to the forest as if it was magical.
Suddenly Ceras felt pain in on his left shoulder as if somebody had dug a knife into it and twisted with malice causing as much pain as he could. Looking around to see what was attacking him, he only saw a flash of light followed by the following text:
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Forest sprite
4
30
30
30
Translocation
He noticed that his HP had dropped slightly, indicating that he was injured. Before he could react, the two twins screamed in pain to as they crouched down with injuries to their arms that were bleeding with ice shards sticking out of them. Still, nobody had seen the attackers, but Symania reacted quickly.
“Everybody gathers in a close, and I’ll shield you all,” she said, indicating for them all to come next to her.
Once everybody was crouching in close to her, a transparent shield went up encompassing them all. Ceras looked, and the only way he could tell the shield was there was a slight reflection in the air as if a thin layer of glass was in front of him. In the distance, he saw a white flash and then another closer to the shield, as a small, winged creature appeared close to the shield and threw a tiny fireball, that hit the healers shield and burst into red flames that spread across the surface. Ceras was about to produce his own large fireball, but the sprite disappeared in a flash of white light only for another to reappear as quickly in a different place.
This time Ceras was ready and released a fast-moving-hot fireball full of energy, that exited the shield and sped toward the spirt, who moved just quickly enough upwards in the air to avoid the flaming mass of magical energy as it was moving it a shot of a small icicle attack that hit the shield and disintegrated as its energy was absorbed by the shield.
There were two more flashes of light to his right and immediately Ceras shot out a large cloud of icicles in a cloud that was spread out in a meter in diameter. As the sprites were trying to move to avoid the fast-moving icicles, they were just not quick enough and were caught at its edges, becoming a bloody mess that became a mist of red that fell to the ground in droplets. Everybody sighed with relieved that they now had a method for attacking the fast-moving little creature, but Ceras wanted to try a new method next time.
“Rhef, I’m going to immobilize them,” he said, “do you think you can hit it with an arrow if it is still.”
She nodded and pulled back on her bow ready to fire when a sprite was frozen. As two flashes appeared to the left of the group, Ceras immobilized the two sprites with ease as two arrows were in the air at the same time hitting both of the monsters that dropped to the ground. For the first time he got a look at the forest sprite, it had a homolid body that with a face that looked like a goblin and was only a few inched tall. One of the sprites was green and the other tanned brown with a large translucent wing on their back.
“I think that you can drop the shield as we have a method for dealing with them,” said Ceras to Symania who was showing some strain for keeping the shield up for such a long time.
“Thanks.”
As everybody started to move through the forest again, three sprites appeared with a flash of light, which were instantly immobilized by Ceras magic. Then one was shot out of the air with an arrow while the second Rinald
o blurred for a second and reapplied under it swing his maze batting the sprite into the distance. The final sprite was close to the ground and fell prey to the mouth of Apollo biting and then chewing it with a final sallow motion that got most of the adventures muttering gross.
The team started to follow Rhef lead, after being healed by Symania through the enchanting section of the forest toward a large rocky cliff. As the other got better at shooting or batting the sprites he found that he had to cast the immobilization spell less and less.
Rinaldo found that with his time dilation skill he could reacted fast enough to kill the sprites before they could disappear. After a particular quick battle where many of the little sprites suddenly appeared in the midst of adventures that were all immobilized and dealt with, Grikius was looking at the drops from the dungeon for the spites. He was holding up a few copper coins and a five-inch pair of transparent wings.
“I really wonder what these are useful for?” Grikius said as he placed them in his bag with a curious expression, “when we open the shop in the fort above, I’d better brush up on my knowledge about the prices for all the ingredients from the dungeon, so we can make some profit from the adventures, wanting to get the money for item they collect.
We’ll be getting craftsmen and women coming from all around the area, to buy ingredients from so I need to know what everything is worth.”
Soon the adventures were close to the rocky cliff and the attacks from the sprites stopped to everybody's happiness, as some time one of the would be able to sneak up on the team inflicting an injury that was more painful than life threatening but was annoying.
Rhef guided them as Ceras wonder what the next areas would throw at them, he didn't have long to wait as a rock hit where he had just been standing a second ago. Everybody ducked behind the nearest cover, they could find, as Ceras wished he had learnt a shield spell for defense in a situation like this. Look out from his cover he looked to see what had thrown the stone, but all he could see was the rocky cliff with no movement.
Dungeon Master Page 11