[D'sP] So Close - Chapter 345 (Patreon)

The kobold camp was blanketed in fire. While it wasn’t a heavy blaze, everything seemed to have a wispy coating of flame. For the inanimate objects, this at most crisped thin areas and darkened the edges. While it was fire, the actual temperature was quite low, all things considered.

The kobolds weren’t as lucky. This fire display wasn’t meant as some kind of area attack. Rather, Ace had focused the spell on making them feel the heat. To take advantage of how most creatures don’t do well in a fight if it is too hot. Instead of burning their bodies, you could see the spell as burning up their stamina. Except such a limited view of it would truly undersell things.

A fact that the kobolds are experiencing first hand. Though the kobold fire mage is having an easier time using his magic. Which if it had allowed him to dispel the AOE debuff would have been useful. This boost, however, doesn’t allow that as it comes from the increased levels of fire Mana from said debuff. It would be like trying to dry a towel by dumping water on it, water you had just wrung out of said towel.

Of course, magic like that isn’t free to cast or easy to handle. Ace was really stretching his magical skills in casting it and without the mithril cored wand would likely not have been able to cover so much area and still affect things. Not that the potency of the spell was elevated too much, but a small increase over a large area can work wonders.

Though the biggest downside to this all was the loss of control. Ace wasn’t able to exclude his teammates from the effect. In theory, this spell was meant to cover about the area of one of the dungeon’s small rooms and allow his team to fight within it. The kobold camp was bigger than that and did not allow such fine control. After all, that isn’t what a wand is for.

Ace doesn’t particularly care. They’ve been fighting this camp, over and over, for a while now. He wouldn’t say he has an opinion on it, at least, not like he does for the twelfth floor’s grass maze. However, while not stuck on the camp itself, they’ve certainly maintained a holding pattern based upon it. So, to unleash a fire storm upon them, even if it isn’t actually a literal fire storm, is nice.

Though soon enough, the camp has been beaten and the group is forced to rest. While the release was cathartic, it used up a ton of Ace’s Mana on what, in the end wasn’t a vital fight that needed it. Still, no one complained as they all felt a bit better after the display. Besides, it isn’t like they couldn’t make use of a rest.

To get to this point still required them to tromp through two annoying floors. One a literal battle of attrition and the other just as much about attrition, if less focused on actual fights. Though they did get lucky on the twelfth and it only took them about an  hour and a half to get through.

Still, that doesn’t change the fatigue from fighting the myconid sprouts on the eleventh floor. Not only is it a slog, but the wands don’t help at all. It isn’t like the sprouts are resisting their spells. They don’t need to as they have substituted individual resilience for horde tactics.

And as the group finishes their rest, they’re about to face the same sort of thing, but worse. Not only are there a lot of birds, but they don’t group up like the sprouts. Yes, the floor would likely be a lot harder if all the birds swarmed the delvers.

However, if they came in larger numbers, stuff like the classic fireball would be more effective. As it is, you’re almost forced to kill the birds one at a time. It was only the golems that came in packs and their resistance removed much of what teams had been depending on for dealing with swarms.

This dependency on magic wasn’t on purpose or anything. If they could communicate with the rest of the dimension, they would even find out that such trends are basically universal. Mana is simply one of the easiest powers to cast spells with. In fact, the use of the word “spell” comes from magic and has simply been expanded to refer to most “magical” effects.

However, just as equally, this is why resistance to magic tended to be common. You ended up with the same problem with things like fire. Which is why stuff like wands were figured out.

And speaking of wands, the party has finally arrived at where the first golems had shown up, ready to give their wands a proper test. Except nothing happened. Well, the birds kept coming, there just weren’t any golems. Confused, the party continued on, only for golems to come down on them from the cliff on the opposite side they were expected from.

This was a surprise, but at the same time it became obvious why they had always come from the drop. They took a lot longer climbing down the cliff than if they had just been popping up over on the other sids. Still, the shock of the unexpected was enough to even the odds. Which wasn’t exactly worth it for the golems as even if Ace and his party didn’t get a chance to attack, they could see where all the enemies were.

Then Ace cast his spell. It wasn’t the one he used on the kobold camp. After all, it isn’t like a golem uses stamina or would care about the temperature as long as it wasn’t hot enough to bake their clay. Which seeing as the clay is infused with their power is a lot hotter than usual. No, his spell this time was from his first focus, plants.

From around the golems, roots rise up and grab them. The golems attempt to just keep walking, but unlike the expected result, most of them were held in place. Their innate resistance trying to override the strengthening effect Ace’s magic has on the plants, but the spells is potent enough to keep going.

However, since some golems kept going, it showed that things were a lot closer than expected. Neither side truly winning out. Still, this was enough for the party to sustain the fight.

The problem was that Ace couldn’t keep casting the spell. In fact, with the non-stop fight, it would take a while to recover. Longer than when the next golems should show up. Of course, Ace and his party aren’t idiots and so had planned for this, with the other magic users having their own crowd control spells.

Ruby kept with her focus on fire, using it to blind the golems. Susan didn’t specify that she was using magic, but whatever she did managed to cause the golems to move like they were in molasses. Then last but not least, OG has figured out how to turn his healing magic around and made it so each blow to the golems did much more damage than they should have.

Except, even with three other people in the rotation, they didn’t manage to beat the floor. After the second go around, the party got close and yet couldn’t maintain. They tried a fight against the golems without any crowd control effects, but by that point the number of attacking Hexku had grown by too much.

It was close though and the party felt that they were missing just one small step to conquering the floor. On the other party, Jim and his team weren’t doing any better. Though they had enough magic users, in theory, to handle it. The problem with them was the fact that not all of them managed to figure out their own form of crowd control yet.

And they might never. While in theory there are basic spells for just about any role and no real limit on what you can learn. The fact of the matter is that some people are better or worse at some things. Not to say they can’t do whatever they want. Rather, it will take much longer, be of lower quality, and too much a waste of time.

The best example of this being healing. In theory, any element can be used to heal. However, at the low end, fire tends to be limited to things like cauterizing wounds, which isn’t really as helpful as it could be. At least, not unless you’re bleeding out right at that moment. In which case, well, it will keep you alive, so who cares about the pain or a scar?

Though even with their limits, Ace feels they can manage it as they are now. No leveling to eke out just a bit more power and no switching out people to get an extra dose of crowd control. To him, it all comes down to properly managing their resources.

An obvious improvement they can make is to fight the first golem group or so without crowd control. After all, there are fewer birds attacking them at that point and so don’t need to. Even if it does, make them use a bit more stamina and a touch more Mana. That doesn’t compare to having an extra use or two of one of their AOE crowd control spells.

Though while they were planning that, down in the dungeon, Doyle wasn’t sitting idle. The surprise golems from up top had been something he had wanted to try and it failed. Maybe if they were capable of just jumping down from the top, it would have worked, but they weren’t.

So now, Doyle had to figure out something else. While currently, the challenge was there and would likely always be. He wanted there to be at least some variation. Right now the fight was literally just climbing higher, birds coming in from up front and to the left, and golems from down and directly to the left.

Since the right side didn’t work as is, Doyle was going to have to figure something out. Worse, his hexapes aren’t exactly as stealthy as they could be. Yes, they do have the general advantage things like golems and the undead have. That of being able to sit completely still for hours on end.

However, the hexapes weren’t just made of clay. They had quartz dust mixed in and while they weren’t as bad as some sparkly clay Doyle had seen in a craft store once. The crystal dust, especially in the plates, could still catch the light. It wasn’t much, but with the Barrais? Well, Doyle wasn’t going to bet on the golems being able to stay hidden if out in the open.

Which is a real shame. It is a classic ambush scenario, to have a stone golem or earth elemental to pretend to be just another boulder. Of course, he could cover them with dirt and make them a part of the cliff face, but golems rely on physical sight more than expected and so there would always have to be some of them uncovered.

Not that Doyle doesn’t add such an encounter into the mix. Not everyone that makes it there is going to be with some sort of super spy or whatever it was the Barrais did pre-system. And besides, maybe he gets lucky and they don’t notice it the first time, just like what happened this time. Though he is removing the clifftop hexapes as even with their amazing climbing ability, the climb down doesn’t work.

And with that, Doyle is mostly out of ideas for what to do with his golems. They’re effective fighters and for basically every other party, the hexapes will be a major stumbling block. It is just that Ace, Jim, and their respective teams are too skilled. A fact that Doyle admits he should be used to by now. After all, despite so much time passing, every party that doesn’t come from the inner circle has gotten hard stuck on the second boss floor.

To Make A Wand - Chapter 344

A New Deal - Chapter 346