"It is really dark in here." Rastel used his hands to feel the rough tunnel walls by his right and muttered gloomily.
As soon as they entered the dungeon, he found himself in a long dark tunnel he could barely discern. All he could tell was that there were two walls on both sides that extended forward in front of him.
"What level is your dark sight skill?" Roxanne asked as she walked ahead. She didn't seem to have any problem with the dark environment.
"Level three." Rastel did a quick check at the passive skill he had gotten when he had entered the immortal's dungeon.
"That is low." Roxanne frowned and turned back to look at him only for her lips to open up slightly.
Rastel's bright green eyes were emitting a faint glow in the darkness which made them look a bit magical. Rastel didn't seem to notice her shock though and was squinting his eyes, trying to find out her exact location.
"If you don't mind, how many stat points are in your INT stat right now?" Asking for somebody's stat allocation was normally not done as you can easily expose your weaknesses that way.
If someone knew how your start points were allocated, they could easily grasp your weakness and know how to attack you effectively.
Rastel thought for a moment before deciding to answer her. "It is currently at 52."
"52? No wonder." She nodded with a slight sigh and continued walking again.
Looking at his glowing eyes, she said with a smile. "I'm guessing you are using the racial perk of the muans and reading a lot of books?"
Rastel who was walking slowly behind her while trying to get his eyes used to the darkness nodded.
He had been reading books every slight free time he had and had boosted his intelligence to 46 from the previous 40. When he leveled up twice previously, he used his 6 free stat points on intelligence again bringing it up to 52.
The reason for this was simply because he badly needed an increase in mana. To be able to utilize his golems well, he needed to be able to last longer and use the golems as vigorously as possible without being wary of his mana reserves.
"When your intelligence reaches 100, something good will happen." The smile on Roxanne's face turned mysterious. Although, Rastel couldn't see it.
"What will happen?" Rastel asked curiously. But before Roxanne could answer, they heard soft thumping sounds from ahead.
Rastel didn't hesitate and threw a fireball up ahead. The bright ball of flame illuminated the long tunnel as it burned forward. Just a few meters ahead of them, a group of three jerbers were running towards them with violent dispositions.
BOOM!
The fireball hit the first jerber square in the face and dispersed. The beast only let out a soft grunt and seemed more enraged. It broke off from the group and rushed forward.
"These things have tough armor. Your low-level spells can only barely scratch them." Roxanne said as she took out her long shotgun.
With a light click, she fired.
BANG!
The jerber at the lead fell to the floor without any drama.
YOU HAVE GAINED 50EXP!
BANG! BANG!
Two more shots followed which ended the remaining two with little fanfare. Rastel watched as the three bodies dissolved and disappeared like a bunch of pixels, leaving a few things on the floor.
YOU HAVE GAINED
50EXP!
YOU HAVE GAINED
50EXP!
"That was anti-climactic." He said disappointedly as he looked at the exp notifications.
"True but it's far from over. In fact, I just made our situation worse" Roxanne let out a small laugh as she picked up the few things on the floor.
PARTY LEADER ROXANNE HAS PICKED UP 2 ETE ORES
PARTY LEADER ROXANNE HAS PICKED UP 1 ETE ORES
PARTY LEADER ROXANNE HAS PICKED UP 5 KRYTS
PARTY LEADER ROXANNE HAS PICKED UP 2 K ...…...
PARTY LEA ...
.....
A series of notifications echoed out one after the other on his interface.
"What do you mean?" Rastel took his eyes away from the interface and asked her.
"Well, you see…." Roxanne stood up from the floor and pointed forward with a small laugh.
"Jerbers are very sensitive to sound."
THUMP! THUMP!! THUMP!!!
The loud thumping sounds echoed down the tunnel like a huge wave filling Rastel with a sense of dread. The number of jerbers rushing down could only be estimated and the numbers appearing in his head didn't seem too optimistic.
"You…. Hah!" He sighed before bringing out three golem figures from his inventory.
His eyes had already adjusted a bit to the darkness and he could barely see the countless shapes that were climbing over each other in an attempt to get to them.
"I guess it would be faster this way?" He threw two of the figures forward and they promptly expanded into two hammer golems.
THUD! THUD!
The forms of the hammer golems looked intimidating with their huge builds and tall heights. They effectively blocked the tunnel leaving no road for any jerber to pass through.
THUD!
The last golem appeared right beside him. This one was a traditional golem that resembled Amba and it stood a head taller than Rastel's tall frame.
Roxanne adjusted her posture and aimed her gun at the space underneath a hammer golem's large arms and chuckled.
"This might be the second easiest dungeon raid I will ever do." She said as she took down a jerber with a bang.
"Oh, which one is the first?" Rastel asked as he willed the hammer golems to do the only thing they were built for.
Smash!
BAM! BOOM!
The two golems hit the front rows of the approaching jerbers, sending them flying back into the crowd.
BANG! BANG!! BANG!!!
"I was level 6 and I had my gun. The mobs were regular people, bandits. It was so easy it got boring." Roxanne fired multiple shots into the crowd without discrimination.
Each of her shots killed a jerber, sending pixels flying into the sky.
Rastel looked at the incoming mob through a gap and saw no end to them. He ordered the golem beside him to lower itself and he climbed unto its shoulders to get a better view, the ceiling was high enough.
Sitting on the shoulder of the golem, he looked at the never-ending line of jebers. Their hard shells made sharp clacking sounds as they clashed against each other unendingly while trying to reach the front.
Fighting such mindless beasts, Rastel actually felt grateful. It was definitely less stressful than fighting sentient beings who could sense danger and plot.
"Hey, let me get up there too." He heard Roxanne call out from below.
With a light leap, she was sitting comfortably on the other shoulder with her gun still pointed forward and firing continuously.
BANG! BANG!! BANG!!!
Countless jerber died from either the gunshots or from getting smashed to death under the hammer golem's ruthless bashings.
Rastel rubbed his ears to ease the numbness from the loud sound and yelled out.
"Why is this going to be harder? We seem to be doing really good so far!"
Roxanne paused for a while to reload the gun and answered him.
"Well there is going to be a lot of them, this is hard mode. Normally, only a proper team of at least five people would tackle it. We are simply cheating." She smiled with great satisfaction.
"But even though, we can't last long doing this." She reminded him.
Rastel looked at his slowly depleting mana bar and realized what she meant. It was definitely unrealistic to clear this number of enemies without exhausting themselves first.
"Another reason is the final dungeon boss of course." She said as she lifted her gun to aim once again.
"What about him?" Rastel controlled a hammer golem to smack down a flying jeber that had leaped into the air. He was getting better at subconsciously reacting to attacks while utilizing the golems.
"Well if the rumors about the hard mode final boss are true." She took down a jerber trying to crawl under one of the golem's legs and it burst into pixels.
"It should be a magic beast of some kind." She said thoughtfully.
Rastel was just about to nod in understanding when he paused and turned to look at her in surprise.
"Eh?"
____________________________________________________________________________________________________-----------------
In one of the bars in Eadon, the two figures of Baldur and Helia of blue leaf were seated at a table.
Their blue and yellow themed clothing drew attention and their identity was not a secret around here. The numerous people in the bar, including the NPCs avoided them with fear.
Baldur was tackling a bowl of soup that was filled with plenty of small pieces of meat and some other unknown yellow lumps with great relish. Helia on the other hand was looking critically at the interface in front of her, a small cup of fresh berry wine was held in one of her hands.
Baldur raised his head from his bowl of soup and looked at Helia's frowned face.
"You should order some food and eat. Taking nothing but wine and pastries will slow down your body's development." He said sincerely.
Helia laughed. "This is a game Baldur, I don't need a balanced diet to maintain my strength."
"It helps." He said with a loud slurp.
"Only people like you can do such things like eating well and exercising to get stronger in a game." Helia waved him off airily.
"That is why I am strong." Baldur stated as a matter of fact.
"And blind." Helia countered.
Baldur looked at the countless yellow lumps in his bowl of soup and scooped them up into his spoon then into his mouth.
"This vegetable is supposed to be good for your eyes. Hmm, I think I can feel it working already." He mumbled as he chewed the vegetables up and swallowed.
"That's not how it works you dunce." Helia giggled lightly.
"Come on, finish up and let's go." She closed her interface with a swipe and chugged down the remaining contents of her cup.
"Already? I would have loved to order a few more dishes." Baldur reluctantly gulped down the rest of the soup.
"You can eat as much as you can when we are done with this. We would have a much-deserved break after this." She urged him as she stood up.
Soon after, they paid their bills and walked out of the bar. Wary eyes following them as they left.
Among the people watching them though was an odd figure.
Wearing a rough-looking brown cloak and a piece of cloth that was tied over his lower face. This human with soft brown hair that was dyed white at the fringes was the only one who didn't look the slightest bit apprehensive when he looked at the duo with his pale yellow eyes.
One of his hands held a thin metal pipe which he stuck into a large mug in front of him with the other end hidden underneath his mask, he slurped the contents within the mug slowly.
His other hand propped his head up with support from the crowded table where he sat as he looked at Baldur and Helia with a thoughtful look as they walked out.
"Boss, what is the matter? Should we track them for you?" a fox beastman fawned upon him and asked carefully.
The foxman was short and dressed in an assortment of rags and looked very destitute. But his eyes were shining brightly with cunning and he had a charismatic air around him.
The man turned to the foxman and although his face was covered with a mask, you could tell he was smiling.
"Not at all Lele, you did well gathering all that information. I have to say that I am thankful since you saved me so much stress." The brown-haired man reached a gloved hand into his cloak and came out with a small pouch which he dropped onto the foxman's outstretched hands.
"Thanks a lot, boss! You are really the best!" Lele's eyes shined with greed and happiness.
He then turned to the remaining occupants of the table who were composed of a motley crew of humans and beastmen who were drinking merrily and yelled at them.
"What are you doing? Thank the boss for his generosity!" he smacked a few on their heads.
"Yes! Yes! The boss is the best!"
"Thank you so much, boss! For treating us so nicely!"
"Wait, I thought the old boss was the real boss? Is this new boss only the boss when he is around? Does that mean old boss will be boss again when he leaves?"
SMACK!
The last speaker got a particularly sound smack on his head.
The man didn't seem to mind though and just stood up to leave, taking his iron straw with him.
"Alright Lele, till we meet again." He patted the foxman on the shoulder.
"Of course boss! Of course! I pray we meet again on a clear white moon!" Lele said fawningly.
The man walked out of the bar without replying to the good wishes. His steps steady and his gaze, playful.