[D'sP] Using Authority - Chapter 340 (Patreon)

Not long ago, Ace and his party had faced a similar situation of a four spell barrage. That alone had forced them to retreat as two of the party had been wounded seriously enough that they wouldn’t be able to fight properly. The only saving grace at the time being that the kobolds wouldn’t leave their camp.

Now, though, things were different. While having multiple powers could slow you down and sometimes limit your power, it had one major upside no matter what. Multiple powers meant more utility. Some abilities are just easier to use with one power over another and the classic counterspell is a great example of this. Mana just has an easier time counter-spelling ranged powers.

So, since everyone had so many powers and a lot of practice with them, this time they were able to counter the spell barrage. Not only that, but Sammy sneaks in a counter attack. With a stomp of her foot, she thrusts her shield towards the front line kobolds and a wave of force is hurled at them.

The healer kobold attempts to counter the ability and does a good job of it. If only the visible pressure wave was all there was to deal with. In actuality, Sammy’s attack was two-fold. The obvious pressure wave and a second wave traveling through the ground that came from her stomp. This hidden danger bowls over five kobolds, though only injuring one of them.

From there, the fight quickly devolves into a brawl. Only Ruby and OG stay back to continue countering the kobold mages. A difficult task, but with the melee fight properly started they are restrained in how much magic they can throw around. In particular, OG focused on handling the enemy healer as it was cheaper to handle spells you know more about. Not that he didn’t sneak a cheeky stone throw in here and there.

Though as the fight progresses, he is forced to turn his attention more towards his new calling, that of healing. While the kobolds that had been working the smelter and those wielding just axes weren’t the hardest to fell, the fifteen guards were another matter. The only thing that would make the fight even harder was if they had spears to use as well.

As the fifteen are pure sword and board fighters, though, having a formation simply protects them instead of allowing the back row to attack freely. Well, the mages at the back can, they’re technically their own formation. Though even the second row has trouble adding more than support and the occasional slice of someone tries to get too close to the shield wall.

Ace and the team are just thankful that the shields the kobolds are using aren’t designed for making a proper shield wall. So, while it is harder for them to get through than not, there are gaps to take advantage of.

Though even Susan is having trouble getting a shot in. It wasn’t as obvious in previous floors, but the kobolds don’t just have Mana, they use Qi as well. The use is just a much more passive one to boost the toughness of their scales. Except there was a tipping point that got passed by somewhere between this floor and the last one to have kobolds.

This passive reinforcement went from the melee kobolds simply being a bit tougher, to attacks actually sparking against their scales. Sure, a direct hit was going to work just fine, but glancing blows that would have previously left a mark, now just slid right off. Maybe if not for the leather armor, the fight wouldn’t have been so hard. Jack’s mace didn’t care if they had a solid defense when there was still a flesh and bone body inside of it to shock with his blows.

That leather armor, however, provides just the right kind of defense for them. Sure, the various blades cut through it easily enough, but it was well designed and didn’t come off easily. However, it was Jack who provided the openings needed by the team to make progress.

While the armor did protect against his bludgeoning attack well enough, the force still knocked them back. So, to prevent this three or more kobolds would support each other to block with their shields. This, in turn, left an opening for the others. Not a big one, but Susan didn’t need a big opening to stick a dagger in someone.

Still, the fight was definitely more of a battle of attrition than Ace had hoped it would be. At this point, he had been expecting that with all their training, the fight would at least come to a quick close. Since it is taking so long just shows that the kobolds are strong enough to be a major threat. The only good news is that the training worked well enough that being outnumbered wasn’t a loss. After all, in theory, delvers should always be able to take on more dungeon monsters than they had people.

Even if given a long time to train, regular dungeon monsters never have as much experience fighting as the delvers. It is only with the bosses that this dynamic sometimes flips. So, the fact that the team was fighting on even grounds despite facing over four times their numbers was at least a good sign.

Plus, the battle of attrition was in their favor. Ace’s aura of Authority doesn’t actually use resources when passively spread and the effect on their teamwork is enough to carry the day. Sure, it didn’t magically enhance their attacks or anything. However, what it did do was just as valuable if not more so in a group fight.

Ace’s Authority aura allows them to cooperate better when Ace is leading them. Maybe not to the extent of their breathing being synchronizes, at least not with the passive aura, but enough that when Jack attacks, Susan will always be in the right place to take advantage of it. That when Sammy is forced back, OG is there to drop a heal and toss around a few rocks at just the right time.

On the other side, the kobolds aren’t as organized. Sure, they had technically been training to fight together their whole lives, but no one is actually taking charge of their side of the battle. The healer kobold might try, but they clearly don’t have the actual authority for it.

From that difference, the end of the fight sneaks up on them. A kobold takes one too many strikes and falls. Then another one gets a dagger straight on to the neck. This leaves others open as Jack does his best to pound them into the ground. All the while Sammy is now able to hold the line by herself as the kobolds try and shift their formation to get more bodies to the front.

Though the real signal for the end was when Ace makes use of his Authority. Yes, this does mostly remove the auras benefits from the party, but the results are worth it. Ace charges up a nasty-looking thorn with his Mana and sends it screaming towards the kobold healer using a simple Psionic push.

This wasn’t the first time he had tried this and every other time they dispelled the thorn before it could reach the healer. So, the kobolds tried this once again. Except they met resistance. The kobold mages all snap their eyes to the approaching thread as they feel the first attempt fail. More effort is thrown into the task and shields snap into place, but it isn’t enough.

The difference this time was simple. Ace used his Authority to stabilize the thorn. It was His spell and it Existed. Those kobold mages simply weren’t prepared for a spell reinforced in that way. If previously the spell had been like a clay pot and their counter spell water seeping through it, Ace’s Authority acted like a proper glaze that protected the pot and kept it from leaking.

And all of this exchange took barely a moment before the kobold healer was flung backwards, body limp. The thorn having been aimed at the center of their head and the kobolds attempt to dodge simply resulting in a hand-sized thorn through the eye and into the brain.

After that, the fight is nearly unwinnable for the kobolds. What had been a mostly even battle of attrition flips once they are no longer capable of healing their own? Sure, it was unlikely that they would have won, anyway. But without a healer, they would have needed many more kobolds to make up for it.

Still, by the time the last kobold dies, the party is running on fumes. This fight would have been impossible still if they had been depending on a single power and revealed a reason that many end up dipping into other powers once they hit a bottleneck they can’t manage to break through. Multiple pools of power can extend your stamina in a fight. Sure, maybe you used too much Mana and it isn’t recovering fast enough, but that bit of Qi training might be enough to keep you alive until you recover.

Or, as is the case with Ace’s party, cycling through their powers puts less of a strain on them. This keeps their resource regeneration going without the slow down common in drawn out fights. A body can only handle so much, but barring certain circumstances, different powers strain you in different ways.

Yet despite that, everyone is feeling the strain at this point. The fight had gone on for multiple minutes and no amount of cycling would completely remove the stress of combat. That left them in the dungeon, completely worn out and with a decision to make.

Ace looks around at his party and they all nod back at him. He sighs, “Well, it looks like we’ll have to set up camp before we continue. Good thing I told Jim we would likely be staying the night. Now let’s set up camp, loot everything, and check what was so important about what is apparently a side area to the floor.”

Tents go up easily enough and the pre-existing campfire is more than enough for them so they turn to the loot portals. By this point, everyone in the inner circle of the town had switched out their makeshift delving gear for loot drops, and so the loot wasn’t as special as it once seemed. This was especially true with how the loot came outfitted for the person who grabs it.

Sure, weapons and such aren’t all that size dependent, but the armor is a pain to refit for others. Though Ace is certain that there should be magic to do it, at least to an extent. Their biggest problem at this point simply being a lack of enchanting knowledge. They don’t know all the ins and outs, but the system provided shopkeepers in town assured them that redundant gear does have uses.

So despite not needing a third pair of boots, everyone gets an equal split of any loot that drops. Which, given the effort required to fight the camp, is actually quite decent. And finally, after all that is taken care, they finally turn their attention to just what was going on in this camp in the first place.

Ruby right away notices that something is strange with the smelter, though she can’t quite put into words what it is. On the other hand, it takes them a hot minute to realize the mithril isn’t just a bar of silver. The first to realize it is actually OG, when he tries to scratch the weight of the bar onto it.

See, part of his throwing skills is a very accurate ability to judge how much whatever he picks up weighs. A useful ability when determining how much force to throw something with, but also useful to weigh stuff in general. Except when he tried to record the weight, his dagger acted like he was trying to scrape it against another piece of iron.

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