Dungeon Chapter 26 (Patreon)

The simple melee fribbits swarmed up from the bog.

“Shadow wave.” Desmonda whipped out her spell, catching the first few and wounding them.

“Earth Stomp.” I sent a ripple through, and finished them off.

Now that I looked it in the familiar environment of the dungeon, was my spell a little wider? That would make sense with the boost to my magic stat.

No time to examine that further, I swept back and forth with my sword, cutting through the wave of fribbits.

But unlike last time, the wave was short-lived.

“At least they stop coming now.” Harley looked a little disappointed as she picked up a few pieces of loot. “This is all garbage. I thought this was the second floor.”

“We need to find some of their camps.” Charlotte reminded her. “Though it is the second floor, the fribbits are relatively weak and provide poor loot until you get to the champions and the shamans.”

Harley make a gross noise as she picked up slimy goo. “Does this actually sell for anything?”

“Alchemists use the strangest things. Who knows, that could be part of what makes your health potions.” Des gave an evil smile as Harley only became more disgusted. “You might have been drinking it the other day.”

“Eeew. Stop.” Harley threw the slime in her CID. “Let’s go kill things. Ken, give me your sword so I can stab something.”

I tossed her a spare, and she caught it. “Harley, do you even know how to fight?”

“No, I just want to stab something.” She stomped forward through the marsh until a fribbit popped up and lunged at it, stabbing the poor monster through the head. “There, that’s good.” She tossed the sword back to me as more of them appeared up from the bog.

“At least she’s good at drawing more monsters to us.” I stepped around her with an earth stomp as Bun-bun joined me in dealing with the newest batch of fribbits while Harley played a rather angry tune on the flute.

But our party worked together flawlessly, the two days’ break and our new skills fitting together easily.

Maybe it was that I was in a relationship with two of them or that between Harley’s music and Charlotte’s healing we were able to stay at the top of our form for all of it.

Either way, we cut a swath through the second floor until we found a crude wooden palisade with a much larger band of fribbits milling about inside.

“Hold.” I said bringing up a fist for the rest of my group to stop. “I think we found a camp with larger ones.”

“Finally.” Harley moved, but Des grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down.

“Hold on. Ken can you check it out?”

I nodded, slipping forward at a low crouch. There were a few dozen of the smaller fribbits, nothing we couldn’t handle. But then four taller ones carried staffs with bones and feathers dangling off the tips told me exactly what they were.

Several crude tents had fribbits in them, but I couldn’t get a good enough look to tell what type.

Slinking back over to the group I reported on it, making a guess at another six fribbits of unknown type.

“This is where having a tank would be useful.” Charlotte pointed out. “That way Ken could be the one assassinating the shamans.”

“We work with what we have.” I sighed, that would be nice. “Bun-bun will take out the shamans.”

The rabbit pointed at itself with an incredulous expression and then turned to Charlotte as if to confirm.

“Yes, Bun-bun, I know you can do it. Ken needs to be here to deal with the larger numbers.” Charlotte rubbed the rabbit’s head.

It chattered at her in return.

“Bun-bun needs to know that you’ll take good care of me.” Charlotte echoed his concerns.

“I’ll protect her with my life.” I promised the rabbit who nodded firmly at me and bounded off to the side so it didn’t get caught up in the smaller ones after we started this.

“Alright, let’s do this.” I led the group as Charlotte fired off her wand and Des started picking off fribbits with her shadow bolts.

The little ones came into range and I came in swinging, aiming to kill them as fast as possible.

This was a time to focus on offense and let Charlotte’s healing keep me healthy.

After all, with my heavily boosted stamina, I could take quite a few hits from the fribbits now.

I wasn’t going to put on a shield, but I was certainly the best in our group to take damage.

As I waded through the fribbits a stone totem rose out of the ground behind my enemies. It sent out a pulse that wrapped itself around the fribbits and giving them a green sheen.

My knife skipped off their skin, like it was armor.

Bun-bun came screaming in from the back and attacked one of the shamans.

“Get them, Bun-bun!” Charlotte cheer him on before throwing me another heal.

“Earth Stomp.” I tried to get to the totem, making the fribbits stumble, but they didn’t die from my skill anymore and had to push through them.

My sword came down hard on the totem, chipping away half of it before my knife toppled it over, and the fribbits’ green glow faded.

“Ken, focus on fighting. I’ll get the next one.” Des promised, keeping herself between the fribbits and our two supports trading off using her knife and her spells.

I ran my sword through two fribbits, happy that they were back to being easy to kill. “Earth Stomp.” I crushed my way through a group of them.

Another totem popped up, but Des and Charlotte switched their attacks and took it down quickly.

I was working my way through the small fribbits when one tent parted and the largest fribbit we’ve seen yet stepped out.

This one was easily double the height of the small fries we’d been dealing with, but it had a rotund stomach and powerful looking arms on its otherwise froggy body as it faced the rest of us.

“Ken.” Charlotte shouted.

“I see it.” My eyes were locked on the champion fribbit.

“No, Bun-bun.” Charlotte corrected me.

The rabbit was limping away from the shamans as they harried it with spells.

Fucking hell.

“Sprint.” I activated the skill and raced over the last few fribbits and got between the retreating Bun-bun as Charlotte started to spam healing on her pet.

I came down on one of the shamans. “Dark Strike, Earth Stomp.” I chained the spells together, finishing it with a cut of my sword. The shaman staggered away as the other three left Bun-bun alone to heal their compatriot.

Still things weren’t looking great as the champion fribbit closed in

But that only gave me an excuse to go further. I’d been excited to use this skill.

“Metamorphosis.” My arms bulged as my skin darkened and horns grew from my forehead.

My gear absorbed in my body as my fingers grew into dagger like claws and I put on another two hundred pounds of body mass.

“Whoa!” Harley stopped playing for a second. “Your hair is so long.”

I wasn’t focusing on Harley, instead bringing up my CID to check my stats.

Ken Nagato

Class: Aberrant

Level: 2

Experience: 86/300

Strength: 22

Dexterity: 28

Stamina: 39

Magic: 18

Mana: 23

Skills:

Dark Strike, Earth Stomp, Charm, Metamorphosis, Sprint,

My Strength, Dex and Stamina were all up by 9 with the metamorphosis. Half of my magic stat.

Flexing my hand I could feel the strength it granted, but I also recognized the challenges it presented when it absorbed my weapon.

Now, I knew why Des was trained in knife fighting. In this form, my fingers were each sporting a claw like a small knife and there wasn’t much difference between knife fighting and claws.

There wasn’t time to dwell on this for long though.

We were still in the middle of combat.

I stepped back up to the shaman that was being healed and my claws flashed as I activated Dark Strike twice in quick succession.

The shaman exploded into black smoke and I jumped out on reflex, good thing too because a club smashed through the black smoke as the champion fribbit closed in on me.

Bun-bun flew into its face scratching it, but dodged back out before it did any significant damage. Anything it did was healed in moments by the shamans as two focused on healing it while the other remaining shaman worked another totem spell.

“Focus on the shamans.” I called going toe to toe with the champion wanting to give metamorphosis a good exercise.

The champion swung at me again and I leaned into it my knuckles crackling with strength as I punched his club.

It hurt, but I only smirked, happy with the pain as my stats and the skill worked to fortify my body.

My other hand came around and my claws raked through its round stomach.

Both of us started getting heals, but my girls were working down the shamans quickly with the help of Bun-bun.

The champion was strong, but with metamorphosis and my demon secondary class, I had far more stats than a level two should have.

I stripped it of its club after two exchanges and hammered in its skull revealing its magic crystal and shattering it as the girls brought down the last shaman.

My adrenaline was pumped so hard at the thrill, I wobbled, only to recognize the feeling of low mana hiding behind it.

I canceled metamorphosis and stumbled a few steps before I just decided to sit down on my ass rather than fall. “Phew, that was something.”

“That was so fucking cool!” Harley bounded over, the fribbit camp cleared. “First you were like RAAAH, then it was like UUUURG. Then I thought it was going to be a slugfest, but you beat the living daylights out of that big fribbit.” Harley’s eyes practically glowed. “Can I be a demon-thingy too?”

“No.” Des snapped. “Besides, Ken defeated a level forty five floor boss for that form. Though, I agree, it’s pretty cool and a little hot.”

Note to self, Des might like that form. Now I just needed it to last longer than that.

“You okay?” Charlotte handed me a bottle of water while Bun-bun cried for some of it.

“Here you go champ. You did the hard work.” I poured some water in my hand for him before taking a big swig myself.

Though, Bun-bun stared at my hand for a moment before grudgingly drinking from it. The rabbit still hadn’t warmed up to me.

“We’ve been at it for a few hours, lunch break?” Harley was already sitting down and pulling a sandwich from her CID.

“It’s not even eleven yet.” Des scowled.

“Being this cute burns a lot of calories.” Harley said around a mouthful of her sandwich.

Des sighed, but seeing me and Bun-bun resting decided it was time for a break too. “Well, we’ll gather up this loot in a minute, but looks like the champion actually dropped a piece of loot.”

I hadn’t noticed with my brief bout of low mana, but she was right.

A shield sat down on the ground.

“Oh, maybe Ken—“ Harley started, but I cut her off.

“Absolutely not. I’m not picking up that damn shield. You can have it Harley.”

“Or we could give it to Bun-bun.” The bard’s eyes sparkled as she turned to the rabbit. “What do you think? Want to be guardian Bun-bun? Carry a big shield and smack all the bad guys away from Charlotte?” She egged the rabbit on.

Bun-bun’s ear shot straight up and its eyes filled with a look lost in the dream that Harley was spinning up.

Who knew what was happening in that little furry head right now.

“Maybe we’ll give Harley the shield and she can go tank for us.” I teased.

“Hey.” She tossed her hair. “Just because you can’t handle that I’m just so adorable and so funny, doesn’t mean you need to feed me to the wolves.”

All jokes aside we sort of needed a tank. This would have been several times easier with a real one in the party.

Charlotte karate chopped Harley, shocking the whole group.

“Charlotte! You’re supposed to be the nice one.” Harley whined.

“No flirting with Ken, even if it’s a joke.” Charlotte crossed her arms.

Harley pouted. “I was just joking.”

“Charlotte, do we need to talk about something?” I asked, it was unusual to see the cute druid being so aggressive.

“No.”

I raised an eyebrow and waited.

Harley was smart for once and just kept her mouth shut. Or maybe she was always smart, her distractions had a way of bringing us all closer.

Des was the first to break the silence. “If there’s a problem, you need to tell us. I can’t help if I don’t know and we can’t expect Ken to be a mind reader.”

Charlotte puffed out her cheeks. “It’s just… just… I haven’t even kissed Ken, and you sp-spent the night.” She had trouble even saying it.

“Dra~ma.” Harley sang only to dodge out of Des’s way before the warlock could smack her rear. “What? It isn’t easy to have a harem, Ken, learn all the tips and tricks and then share them with me for when I get my own.”

“Harley.” My tone was filled with warning. Right now I needed to focus on Charlotte. “She has a point, Charlotte, this isn’t going to be that easy. Dealing with a single relationship is tough enough.”

She blew out a heavy breath. “I know. That’s why I didn’t say anything, I am working on this myself.”

Des scooted closer to Charlotte and gave her a side hug. “But we are in this together.”

Charlotte blushed and leaned against the more confident girl while Des shot me a wink.

“Right.” I came over on Charlotte’s other side. “If we are going to be diving deep into the dungeon together for a very long time, we need to support each other in everything.”

Even Harley came up and hugged Charlotte. “Even if I’m not part of the sexipades, I’m still here for you too Char.”

“Thanks guys.” Charlotte was blushing and looking at the ground. “It means a lot that you are all here for me.”

“Me and your relationship is its own thing, don’t feel like you are competing with Des.” I urged her.

Des cleared her throat. “Besides, you have a leg up on me.” The warlock said causing us all to look at her. “What? She’s clearly got a lead on me emotionally even if I’m ahead physically. Look at the way that Ken is so protective of her, always aware of where she is in combat more than me.”

“You can handle yourself better.” I argued quickly.

“See, he even admits it.” Des pointed out.

I didn’t argue further because her words made a sweet smile blossom on Charlotte’s face.

Not that Des was wrong, Charlotte was just too cute. I wanted to protect her and dote on her; it was just two very different relationships.

I wanted to end this on a high note, so I leaned over and picked up the shield. “Oh, hey, this has plus two to magic. This is actually pretty amazing for the second floor.”

“What?!” Harley dove over Charlotte. “Gimme!”

I pulled it away with a laugh. “Didn’t you say you didn’t want the shield? I think I’m growing to like it.”

“Like it enough to give it to your favorite Druid?” Charlotte bat her lashes at me.

“Not fair.” Harley cried out.

“You know if you give that to me, I bet there are a few things I could think of next time I check your seal. They say a good tongue massage does wonders.” Des tapped at her lips drawing my mind into the gutter with the things she could do.

Charlotte frowned. “That’s not even close to fair.” Her and Harley shared a look, and I knew an alliance against Des in this had just formed.

“Yeah.” Harley latched onto it in agreement. “Go away temptress. I want the shield.”

Regardless of their offers, Des was the one who would actually use it for more than just its stats. She was fighting in melee. “I really think Des should get it.”

Harley gasped. “You slut.”

“Do not call Ken a slut.” Charlotte and her brief alliance with the bard melted like that.

“I mean, if the condom fits.” Harley cackled at her own joke.

Des raised a hand menacingly.

“Yeah, totally. Des deserves it most, she’s in melee all the time. But that means I get to call dibs on the next loot drop.” Harley quickly changed her tune.

“I think that’s more than fair. If it is a caster item, then it is all yours. But if it’s a sword or something…” I trailed off.

“Yeah, yeah. Give the evil temptress the shield and then lets go pillage some more fribbit camps. If there’s a melee weapon it is all yours. I want a big poofy dress.” Harley twirled her flute around and let out a swift marching tune.