With Shadow leading them through the dungeon in the new fashion, they easily mowed through the wolves. When they came near the caverns where the wargs slept he didn't have the team slow down and silently take down the wolves. Nor did they have Tetsujin use choke to restrain the warg as they did with in the previous run.
Shadow directly went into the room and with the use of cheap shot and garrote managed to restrain the warg easily. The remaining just followed into the room and began to shower their attacks on the warg. Even the blackrock wargs which had taken some precautions and planning before, were no trouble to Shadow after he used the garrote.
In this way they moved through the dungeon with a decent speed. They reached the end of the dungeon to the large enclosure where the worgen was located under 40 minutes. If this was the elite instance of the dungeon, they were sure that their team would have made the fastest clear of the dungeon beating the system record time.
Before the enclosure, they all stopped to take a small period of rest and eat some bread, water and meat before they continued. Merlin already had some warg meat patties ready which temporarily boosted they strength attribute along with filling up a decent amount of mana and health. They sat down to enjoy these refreshments before the final boss.
"This run was ridiculous!" exclaimed Tang unable to hold it any longer. "With brother Shadow's new weapon, we definitely would have gotten the fastest clear in elite mode. It is sad that we can't see that happen. You should have come with us for the elite instance again, we would have already had the first clear."
"You seem to forget that he didn't have the new weapon when we cleared the elite mode for the second time. He probably would have lost the chance to gain the weapon if he did," said Merlin trying to calm down the excited girl
"Yes, but he is invincible with that garrote weapon," continued Tang. She already knew that Shadow was an expert fighter in real-life. The way he used garrote to take down wargs cemented that thought in her mind and even elevated his image to a that of a near godly expert. Merlin and Tetsujin have already realized this and began making jokes about it and were chuckling.
"No, I am not. I can't use it against many monsters. It wouldn't work on the armored warg. Moreover, I also need to continuously hold the garrote with my hand and my movement is restrained during this time. There is nothing without flaws," said Shadow stopping her before she continues to accidentally embarrass him unintentionally.
"I am glad that we have managed to clear these, but it wasn't as good a haul as I expected from hell mode. We hardly got any good resources from the dungeon," said Quiet Fire changing the topic. "I guess all the good stuff must be concentrated in there."
Though they were quite fast and efficient in clearing the dungeon till this point, they didn't have much gains resource wise. They opened a couple of treasure chests, but the contents weren't very great. Many teams have attempted the hell mode by now and unlike the elite instance where they were the first to explore, the treasure chests if any were surely opened by the ones who attempted before them.
But none of the teams managed to finish the hell mode. It was clear that there was some kind of strong deterring agent somewhere. They didn't observe much difference up till now, except for a change in the level. So, it definitely would be something that changed at the end of the dungeon.
With that thought, Shadow halted the team near the entrance as he went into stealth to check the large enclosure at the end of the tunnel. At the first glance, he couldn't notice anything new. It was the same old worgen with an armored warg and two other wargs.
They all just have a higher level than in the elite mode of the dungeon. He was almost convinced that it was all, when he noticed two cinder wolves behind the altar. With their smaller size compared to wars and the red light of the altar camouflaging them he almost failed to notice them.
[Cinder Blackrock Wolves] (Common monsters)
Level: 7;
HP: 2500/2500;
He immediately realized why the previous teams failed to finish the hell mode. It was due to these new monsters. Cinder wolves had an ash color but glowed with a scarlet hue just like the name suggested. They had fire and smoke rising out of them continuously.
They also dealt fire elemental damage to any player or monster that came into contact with them. This made all forms of physical attacks to cause self-harm to the player. Even tanking these monsters was harder than the normal wolves as they continuously dealt fire damage by even being in contact with the players.
These monsters could also use small bursts of fire to propel themselves or push others away. Luckily these monsters seemed to have lower level unlike the actual cinder wolves which were level 15. Else they wouldn't have had any hopes of taking them down.
These would definitely make the dungeon a lot harder than the elite instance. He went back to the team to explain to them. Though he didn't tell the name, cinder wolves as it would raise suspicion, he told them that there were level 7 fire elemental wolves which could cause fire damage and have very high speed.
Though the team was a strong one for a team at this stage of the game, it wasn't capable of handling four monsters at a time. Assuming the two wargs being kept in control by tetsujin and himself, two more monsters would be attacking them. Moreover, with four monsters closely related to wolves they would definitely attack in a pack employing wolf-pack tactics.
Neither Tetsujin or Shadow can control the wolves because they would be in physical contact with them dealing large amounts of damage. Also, fire and thunder elemental damage tend to cause sensation of pain causing them to lose control.
But the worst part was that fire damage would usually lead to loss of durability of weapons and equipment. Blade weapons can have their durability easily recovered by whetstones by sharpening a dull blade, but that didn't extend to equipment. Moreover, the durability loss would tend to be high due to everyone in the team being at a lower level than the wolves with the exception of him.
Shadow calmly explained all the disadvantages they had. Fire damage causing the weapons to lose durability was a common thing in many games. Merlin and Tetsujin were also concerned about having to fight four monsters instead of two.
"If we had better equipment of leveled up to level 7, we could at least consider it as having made our best efforts. It looks like the developers intended even the players with the maximum allowed level to work hard to clear the hell mode," said Tetsujin.
"Let us try it out," said Merlin. "At worst, we will die and lose 5% experience. We gained enough to compensate for that. But winning would give us first clear rewards which would be some of the best equipment in the game."
His argument had a valid point. At this stage, it would feel awful to just turn back. Everyone in the team were also extremely tempted by the thought of the first clear. The temptation of the rewards finally had them vote to attempt the final boss.
As planned, they all were close to one another as the monsters closed in. Shadow and Tetsujin were responsible for handling the wargs and Blinding and Tang would tank the wolves. The remaining were just going to attack, and they need to focus their attacks on the wolves.
It was a decent plan except that it didn't work as expected. Shadow and Tetsujin were still successful in controlling the wargs. They manged to somehow keep the wargs in control. But the cinder wolves were something entirely different from the wargs.
When Shadow and Tetsujin were busy trying to hold the wargs at bay, the cinder wolves as expected attempted to aid the wargs by attacking Shadow and Tetsujin. Tang and Blinding covered them from the cinder wolves as they attacked the wargs.
Shadow didn't even need any help as long as no other monster attacked him. He alone was able to kill the warg. He managed to reduce the strain on the team significantly by holding back one monster all on his own.
Tetsujin did need Merlin and the rest to support him and deal damage to the other warg. With Little White's heals supporting them and potions they managed to slowly kill the wargs which the summoner as expected replaced with new ones. In this manner, the slowly managed to kill eight wargs and the team was glad that there would be no more wargs summoned after that.
This was when the worgen started howling continuously and a sudden change took place in the wolves' pattern of attacks. All this time they used a few attacks on the wolves occasionally but didn't focus on them. The only tried to repel them when they tried to help the wargs but focused mainly on killing wargs.
They wouldn't be able to do much either. The wolves had high movement speed which only Shadow could keep up with. They couldn't deal significant damage to the wolves. Luckily, the wolves always attacked to save the wargs and this allowed the team to predict and repel them.
Uncharacteristically the two wolves started to attack players instead of trying to save the wargs. Both Blinding and Tang blocked them with their shields as planned, but they simply bounced off their shields and moved towards Quiet Fire and Little White Feet.
With their speed, both Quiet Fire and Little White wouldn't be able to outrun the wolves. They did use their skills to attack the wolves while they ran towards them. Quite fire used Frost Bolt against the wolf, which was a level 3 skill and dealt little damage in general, but was very effective since fire attributed beast tend to avoid frost or water attacks.
The smite and holy attack hardly had any effect on the wolf. The wolves gave up on the rest of the team and they both began to focus on Little White Feet instead. This was something that wasn't expected by anyone in the team.
Even though both Tang and Blinding tried to cover for the priest, one of the wolves managed to attack little white feet and flung it away from the rest of the team. The other one also joined it and within a few seconds they managed to kill Little White Feet.
After Little White Feet, they flanked Quiet Fire. She also was killed soon. Without Quiet Fire and the priest, the remaining understood that they had no chance of finishing the dungeon. They would need to fight even the armored warg and worgen later. They began to retreat to the tunnel to save experience.
Sadly, it looked like neither the two wolves nor the wargs would allow to them to leave safely. They attacked them repeatedly from all sides resulting in two more casualties before they left into the tunnel. Only Shadow, Tetsujin and Tang managed to escape. The soon made their way out of the dungeon and through the portal. The others were already at the Blackrock town waiting for them.
"We have underestimated the Hell mode of the dungeon. The increase in difficulty was a lot more than expected. We should have been a bit more careful, prepare and maybe waited till we reached level 7," said Quiet Fire bringing up the topic of the dungeon.
It was common practice to discuss their pitfalls after a dungeon run to analyse and determine what they could have done better. But today, it was not a problem of the players work but their levels and equipment.
Merlin felt most guilty as he was the one who suggested and raised their morale against Shadow's advice, but how was he to know that it would be that difficult. He would be the one to usually start discussing their mistakes but this time he felt like it was his fault. He was the one who was most excited about hell mode dungeon. He couldn't get a team for corrupted forest, so he put all his hopes for getting a first clear of hell mode in the cave of wargs dungeon and that almost resulted in a team wipe.
"It wasn't that we underestimated but we didn't have enough information. It wasn't a usual dungeon that the game had for everyone to help level up fast. There was no dungeon at level 5 till I did the quest for special dungeon. It was a special dungeon and we expected it to be like the regular dungeons in difficulty," said Merlin trying to pull up their spirits. He was the one who led the team mostly. It would be his burden to take responsibility and maintain their spirits.
"We can have other first clears. We just need to cross level 10 and get to the city," continued Merlin pointing them to the next course of action. They wouldn't have another opportunity to attempt hell mode today. It was best that the continue with their quest of getting to the city. Once, they finish that quest they would have a lot more opportunities.
Under other circumstance even Shadow would have agreed that it is best to go and attempt the quest. But he always knew that the quest was a very difficult one. When players noticed that it was very hard, the formed groups of large numbers like 50 or so to go through the quest in all villages.
All other quests in villages had low level monsters and didn't provide with much experience. So, the players had to join forces irrespective of guilds to get out from beginner villages. It was a different experience in beginner towns as they always had monsters that were higher leveled and allowed the player to level up before attempting and clearing the quest. But these quest in town weren't easy either. And couple with the large populace and competition in towns, it was more or less the same situation.