[D'sP] Tough Trees - Chapter 404 (Patreon)

The hexku hit Jeremy and Jay. Neither are shield users, but they manage it. Jay has it easiest because he is using a poleaxe and with a spin, the first few birds are rebuffed. Jeremy, on the other hand, is using a pair of long daggers.

He does a phenomenal job of it, though. The daggers dance through the air, one turns a bird and the other follows up to fully redirect it into another monster. All the while the tips flash as they leave precise cuts at delicate points. If Jay was using their strength to stand strong, Jeremy was using knowledge.

Down in the core, Ally laughed. ‘He is going to get such a skill boost!’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him do this. Him and his wife practice this kind of thing all the time.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘That’s practice. It is amazing what someone can do when they’re just fiddling around. Have you ever seen one of those videos with someone twirling a pen on their hand? Yeah, that is basically what they were doing.

‘And sure, if they had a sword dance equivalent skill, that would probably help it level quite well. After all, half the skill is about the dance. For a combat skill? You aren’t going to get the levels until you implement it in actual combat.

‘Did I talk about this before? It feels familiar? Anyway, to keep this short, everyone on this planet and the newly integrated in general go through this. They have the skills, but not the Skills or Levels in those Skills.

‘However, this isn’t new. Though it mostly pops up in people who have filled all their skill slots. Then once they have a skill slot available, well, this happens. I remember a Court Fae that dabbled with silversmithing for a few thousand years, then when they finally got the skill, received hundreds of level when they made their first piece.’

Doyle, ‘That sounds a bit ridiculous. I would love even a hundred path points, let alone hundreds.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, it’s actually an opportunity cost biting them in the butt. They had the skill to justify that level of Skill. If they had simply had the skill to start with, they would have gotten those points earlier and been able to invest them in paths. The points aren’t important, only the paths you spend them on.’

Doyle rolls back for a moment, ‘Huh, yeah, that makes a certain amount of sense.’

All the while, up above on the 16th floor, Jim and his team have managed to get onto the third island proper. The hexku had been a dangerous fight, but the small flock flying directly at the group has removed a major advantage. That of being able to dodge around. A straight forward attack for them really should be limited to when they’re driving or attacking someone who is unaware.

And it isn’t just the hexku causing trouble. The party finally comes across their first golem. It had even managed to jump out of their puddle and pull off a successful ambush.

But now, the party has made their way to the stump. As they look up at the stump, signs of what happened can be seen. About 3 to 4 stories up where it was snapped off at, there were the remains of a large impact and a fire. Then on the ground around the stump, a number of large volcanic boulders.

That, however, wasn’t what got the party’s attention. Rather, it was the fact that the fallen trunk of the tree not only led through the forest, but was the thing connecting it to the next island. Jim looked up at the sizable and oh so awkward climb, “We need to get on top of this thing. Jeremy, take the end of a rope and see about making the climb easier on us.”

Now, this wouldn’t be such a hard task in the general swing of things. Tree bark isn’t exactly known for being smooth. Except, most of the area near the stump had been blasted free of bark. Besides, it was a cylinder laying on the ground.

Even though it had sunk into the ground a bit, there was still a portion of the climb that called for going up an overhang. Also, the transition to where the bark was still on the tree wasn’t smooth, either. Still, Jeremy was able to scamper up the side of the log. He even went and skipped the overhang part with an impressive leap.

Though the landing was a little rough, with him scrabbling to get a handhold before falling back down. Jeremy had been a bit cocky about it, expecting to just sink his fingers in and gouge his own handholds. This did work eventually, but it wasn’t easy.

From the bottom, Jim shouted up, “How’s the hubris tastes?”

Jeremy, “How was I supposed to know the tree was tougher than others?”

Jim laughed, “Just as tough as all the other trees on this floor. It isn’t only the monsters getting stronger! This isn’t the surface where the trees are all weak. These things were made with magic from the start.”

Kelly sighs, “Ace is going to want to harvest some of this wood to rebuild important structures and we’re the only people able to get here.”

Tess shrugs, “I’m sure he’ll wait till floor 21. That way, we can get it easier.”

Kelly, “If there are trees on the floor. Could be another mushroom wonderland. Besides, we don’t actually know how many more floors there are. We could complete this floor and find the core room waiting for us.”

Jim, “We won’t know till we get there. Hey Jeremy, find a place to tie it off to?”

Jeremy shouts back down at him, “Maybe? Get Jay to put their weight on it.”

Jim looks at Jay who shrugs and goes over to the rope. A few test tugs makes it seem sturdy enough, except the moment he takes his feet off the ground and is fully supported. The rope groans a bit concerningly, but holds.

Jeremy yells down, “It’s holding just fine. Though I advise climbing the rope one at a time. Oh, and send those who would have a hard time free climbing first. I’ve got it tied to a bit of bark and I don’t know how long the bark will last.”

Nobody disagrees, but in the end they all manage to climb the rope just fine.

Jim looks down the trunk, “Huh, that’s a lot of goats. Like, not a lot compared to some floors, but a lot to be on top of a log.”

Jeremy nods, “Yep. They’re totally going to try and push us off.”

Kelly frowns, “There’s going to be kobolds.”

Jim glances over, “Why do you say that? I don’t see any lurking around.”

Kelly gestures, “They’re regular goats. I’m not going to say that the dungeon only puts the regular goats with kobolds, but that has been the pattern over the last few floors.”

Jeremy nods, “I could see it. Though we won’t actually see until we get over there. So let’s get a move on.”

And as they go over to find out, both the delvers and Doyle realize a key detail was missed. The kobolds living in the trunk? That whole “underwater entrance” gimmick is pretty cool. Up until they need to rush to get on the top of said trunk. At that point, they’re just sitting ducks as they try to climb up.

Yeah, Jim would have been able to take care of the kobolds single handedly if need be. They didn’t exactly have much room to defend as they climbed up the side of the log, even if they had carved handholds into it. Of course, Doyle hadn’t exactly planned for the delvers to already be on top in the first place. It wasn’t an accident that the log was smooth by the stump.

Whatever the case, they easily made it to the second to last island. Which was more developed than the first, but the thin crescent wasn’t far from being simply another sandbar. Not that it mattered. Just like the Udoroots under the water between the tips of the crescent ended up not mattering. Jim and company all unanimously decided against the “shortcut” right through the water and so didn’t even get close enough to detect them. Doyle could only comfort himself that they’re still a hidden threat.

Oh, and the goats uh, they were there? It wasn’t so bad on the island. They would charge and try to smack the party around, before getting killed or redirected for a quick dip. Those on top of the giant log need work.

Or not? Doyle isn’t quite sure as while they weren’t much of a threat to this group, that doesn’t say much about a normal party. Also, most of them ended up not dying despite causing the party some trouble. As just like the goats on the crescent island, the front liners of the party could redirect the goats into the water. You know, the water at the bottom of the log where they couldn’t hope to get back up to the party in any reasonable amount of time.

So, in theory, they were earning for the dungeon without costing anything. Except they wouldn’t cost anything, anyway. After all, the floor had a fully stocked farm. Doyle could only shake his core and wait to see how they handled a regular party. Whenever something close to that description managed to get here.

If he was honest with himself, Doyle had a new worry as he watched Jim’s party plow through the floors. Was he over tuning the floors? After all, it was Ace and friends who were “testing” all his floors well before regular people. What would happen when a normal group managed to get past the second boss and into floors that only Ace’s inner circle had regularly been to?

Like, there was that one team that managed to beat the second boss a good while ago and they did tend to show up to farm the 11th floor. That team actually made a decent chunk of change off of this as the spore drops they got made better resistance consumables and Ace made sure their supply was bought up every time. After all, if they didn’t, then Ace would need someone from the inner circle to farm the floor for their own resistance and antidote needs.

So anyway, the party makes it around the crescent island and to the colossal piece of rock connecting it to the volcano island.

Jeremy looks away from the next island and back towards the group, “Welp, for some reason I suspect our fire magic might see a dip in usefulness.”

Kelly scoffs, “And you don’t think it wouldn’t have against whatever is in the water?”

Jeremy shrugs, “Eh, water Magic and fire Magic are counter, but that doesn’t automatically translate to critters of water being resistant to fire attacks.”

Kelly gestures around, “And you don’t think a dungeon monster isn’t going to take advantage of such things? Besides, they’re In water. Even if the monster itself isn’t resistant, they’ve got a much better way to remove the fire and sink the heat than us up here on the land.”

Jim interrupts, “And it won’t matter at the moment since we don’t plan to go into the water. What is important, is whatever we’ll be facing. Do any of you notice what that might be? Yes, I can see the monsters on the outside, but I assume the caldera itself is where the exit is and will have special critters to cause us pain and frustration.”

Jeremy shrugs, “There’s that obvious path in, but nothing moving.”

Kelly nods, “And I’m feeling a surplus of fire aligned Mana coming from there. Not enough to change anything outside, but it gives a parched feeling.”

Jeremy, “Which makes sense, given the overall lack of vegetation and presence of what I assume is ash. Could be sand though I doubt it.”

Jim sighs, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to head on in to find out. I assume we have some buffs to resist fire and heat?”

The Arrow Shattered - Chapter 403

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