[D'sP] Actually Advancing - Chapter 342 (Patreon)

After the excitement over the ingot, the party settles in for a long rest. The term “overnight” was bandied about, but they didn’t exactly have watches to know for sure. Time didn’t actually flow oddly for the delvers, but always being on the edge tended to make it feel like it was.

Of course, a long rest isn’t just a time to sleep. It is also the time to maintain their gear and relax. Well, when not in watch. Though they can manage with two people on watch, which leaves the other four to split between sleeping and relaxing.

In particular, Ruby spent her down time examining the ingot even closer. Of course, it is just a simple mithril ingot, what with how Doyle managed to source it and so there wasn’t anything to find. She didn’t mind this though, as it was her first time handling mithril.

The only excitement during the long rest was when the trio of kobolds arrived from the forest. Except this time, it was the party who had the element of surprise. Those on watch didn’t even bother to wake up the two sleepers and the three monsters got taken down without them even being able to make a noise. The expected outcome when one of the people on watch is Susan.

Though this did give Ace something to think about. The three kobolds had been hauling mithril ore and now he needed to decide if the group would try and assault the intended path or keep to the forest. This didn’t exactly give him a chance to relax properly, but in the end he decided they would climb back up and face the clearly intended path to take.

That decision mostly came from the fact that the ore was oddly heavy and didn’t contain all that much metal. Not a deal breaker or anything, but would explain why there was only a single ingot in the camp. Of course he was wrong about that, but you can’t really blame him, given the information he had and how the previous floors handled the monsters mining ore. Not like Doyle was going to complain as it pushed them towards actually facing the floor properly.

Though both sides could easily see how things would likely go in the future. Delvers would first hit up the kobolds and then use their camp to rest. Then, once ready, continue. This realization hit Ace and Doyle at about the same time and really brought home something both had been mostly ignoring.

Even with the shortcuts after every boss, the time it takes to complete a floor is rising. Sure, spending all your time tromping around and fighting does mean they need to rest more often. However, the twelfth floor alone took over an hour to complete. That was more than the time it would take to complete the first four floors. Nevermind the fact that the eleventh floor requires non-stop fighting, even if it doesn’t quite measure up to an hour.

Just this delve alone with Ace’s unlucky time in the twelfth meant they had been in the dungeon for over four hours. Of course, you couldn’t depend on the twelfth floor to always cause such a delay. However, even if Doyle does put another boss in the fifteenth, it is likely that all future delves to complete this section would be multi-day affairs. In fact, from six to ten was already close, if only because of the long hallways and such.

Down in the core room, this realization causes Doyle to consider certain things. Right now, much of his defense against people raiding him came from small tricks, all things considered, but this opened up the way for a big trick. If he could force any attempted raid to have to traverse every floor, it would give him a lot of time. He could even use the clearing of the save points as a sort of punishment.

Break the rules? Be forced to do a complete one to whatever floor dive. So, with that in mind, Doyle begins to poke around his various options. There should be a way to handle this and he might even be able to connect it with the Adventurers Guild contract. After all, not only does the contract have benefits, it also has penalties for both sides when rules are broken.

Though his search is interrupted when Ace and his party are ready to advance once again. While this new avenue to protect himself was important, it was almost more important to see how they handled his newest monsters. No one had yet to fight the golems and birds, so everything would be completely new for both him and Ace’s group.

Ace was feeling something similar as he stood on top the road, waiting for the last of his team to climb up. While he didn’t know that there would be completely new monsters, it wasn’t hard to guess that would be the case. An empty road with cliffs to both side didn’t exactly leave space for wolves to do their job and the curve was too much for an axebeak to really manage.

Though once they started walking, he didn’t have to wait long, as a new threat revealed itself. Maybe if the dungeon previously had used birds as setting, like the horned rabbits and the lizards, the flock wouldn’t have raised the party’s vigilance so much. Then again, it isn’t like they were meant to be an ambush. And then the flock descended upon them.

Ace and the others were ready for it in theory, but flying enemies don’t exactly fight like ground based foes. While some can hover, especially once you include magic, the more common attack pattern is to swoop in and out. A tactic that the Hexku are nearly perfect for, what with their high base Agility and acrobatic flight skill.

Not that Ace and his team are slouches. In just the first pass, they manage to take down a couple of the monsters. Except this floor isn’t about defeating all the monsters. Sure, you can, but it had always been designed to push people towards leaving the floor once they aggro the birds

And so the team and the birds are at a stalemate for a moment. However, only for a moment, as the team soon notices that no matter how many monsters they kill, there always seems to be the same number of them attacking. Ace looks back towards the entrance, but shakes his head and orders the group to move forward.

The birds aren’t as tough as the kobolds and so to retreat this early would have made their delve nearly meaningless. Though the birds aren’t easy opponents, either. Their extra set of limbs not only gives them more attack options, but also allows for some interesting maneuvering as they fly around.

In particular, they seem quite skilled at turning a fly over into a steep dive. This more often than not ends up in the bird’s death, but only because it forces the party to respond fully to the attack instead of just deflecting them. The hexku were truly attacking from almost every angle and while they couldn’t manage to come from directly beneath them, their fancy flying allowed them to practically skim the ground and attack the party’s legs.

Worse for Ace and the others is the fact they can’t just stand their ground. If they could just form a circle and defend from all sides, this wouldn’t be so hard. But no, they have to move forward and try to get to the end of the floor. Especially with how after the first few passes, not as many birds are dying.

It wasn’t because they suddenly started fighting better or anything. Rather, after the first couple passes, the bird monsters had spread out and their timings began to vary. No longer was it a single wave of birds coming from one direction, but rather birds attacking from every direction at any time.

Sure, the six were more than capable of surviving this, especially as they didn’t have to worry about magic. However, they were losing the war of attrition with each new scrape they suffered and every spell they cast. Then things got worse.

The party had advanced a good distance and fallen into as much of a rhythm as the birds allowed. Only for seven shapes to swing up over the edge to the groups left and attack. Sammy is the first to see them and she shifts to meet their charge while alerting the others to the danger.

The golems, or more properly the plated crystal core crystal clay hexape golems, slammed into her shield with a sound halfway between a crystal hitting the wall and a squelch. This noise is less than pleasant, though more worrying is the sharp crystal plates in golem arms reaching around the shield to grab her. They glittered in the light and as Ruby’s fire string clashes with them to help; the string seems to fizzle out where it is touching the golem instead of burning through as normal.

Not to say the golem’s arm isn’t being burned, but rather there is clear resistance beyond what was normal. Ace notices this and curses, “They’re magic resistant! Why did the RPGs have to get that bit right?”

A bird slashed Sammy in passing, her shield restricted by the three golems that targeted her. Though she is managing to keep them on the correct side of the shield with her weapon. Then she lowers her stance and with a powerful thrust and a quick jerk back, flings the golems off.

All the while, the other four golems have gone around her and started to attack the rest of the party. Though after Ace informs them of their magic resistance, they are able to reposition themselves enough to get the more melee focused in front of them. In particular, Jack managed to destroy the first that reached him, splattering it with an overhead swing of his mace.

In the end, the problem wasn’t with defeating the golems. Sure, they weren’t pushovers and Jack was likely the only one able to one shot them. However, it’s not like the birds stopped attacking while this was happening.

If before the golems showed up, the party was scratched up. After the golems got defeated, everyone sported at least one serious cut and not all of them were from the birds. While the golems definitely preferred a more bashy attack style, their crystal plates could slice and dice just fine. Worse, their four arms allowed them to not only grab on tightly, but smack their target around.

With Sammy’s shield, this didn’t do much, but when Ace tried to defend with his much more magical shield, that resistance came into play. While it wasn’t able to treat Ace’s vine shield as if it wasn’t there, the magical effects that held it together more easily gave way. Ace could only imagine what this would have been like if it was a purely magical shield.

The real breakthrough in the fight was when OG tried a psionically enhanced throw and it worked like normal. So with a quick shout, he informed the others. “Heyo! Looks like magic is all they resist.”

Soon after, all seven of the golems had been defeated and the party was once again left to the birds. Though they were forced to huddle up and defend as OG focused on closing up any serious wounds and Jack downed a potion to stop his bleeding. OG could have handled it, but the potion was much more efficient when dealing with so many small wounds.

Then they continued onward and upward, the road continuing to spiral into the sky. Though after they almost got back into the groove, a group of three golems charged. With only three this time, the fight is much shorter and they don’t need to pause for healing. Except Ace was getting worried.

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