As much as he wanted the rewards and XP for clearing the first floor, Jay felt they could do better. Their entire party was level 3 and they all seemed fine despite having finished the entire floor in record time.
[Continue.]
As he mentally chose the command, a staircase appeared in the back of the cavern. It was dark and fairly narrow; it was just wide enough for 2 people to go side by side.
Fortunately, both pets were able to squeeze through. It took a little pushing and shoving with Bluejay, but eventually they all reached the second floor.
The second floor looked to be much the same as the first floor. The area they entered seemed to be an uninhabited cavern full of trees. No birds chirped, no ants ran underfoot, and no monkeys jumped out to attack them.
With a minute of travel, however, they came upon another cavern. While it looked similar to the first, this one had five of the Cercopes/Jaguar pairs. Fortunately, their party had a good idea of how to fight these things now, and easily took out the Cercopes riders.
Even if they sensed and dodged the first strike, Jay could still hit them. Sarah's arrows and Eve's powers seemed especially helpful, too. Bluejay and the fox had to wait to take out the jaguars, but they tore through them once they got a chance.
Within minutes, they were alone once again. And so, they continued onwards. Almost every minute led to them entering a new cavern, each stronger than the last. By the third cavern, they encountered one of the gorilla ones with a couple of the monkey ones.
The gorilla may not have had a mount, but it definitely made the fight tougher. Jay had to focus on killing that one first, which meant the rest of the monkeys got a chance to attack their party.
Even with Sarah and Eve firing arrows as rapidly as they could, Pete, Andrew, and his pets still had to step in and protect the squishier members of the group. In doing so, Pete suffered a nasty gash in his leg from one of the jaguars.
It wasn't life-threatening, but it was definitely going to be a problem if they couldn't heal it. Maybe somebody should have brought bandages… Then again, Jay had watched a good deal of cartoons when he was younger and he had an idea.
The rest of the group looked at him like he was crazy when he took out his canteen, but as he began to shape the magic he wanted, they all seemed to figure out what he wanted to do.
He moved the water to Pete's leg. As it touched the wound, he could feel the cut—how deep it went, how wide it was and what needed fixing. He focused on that intent, hoping desperately it would actually heal the wound. And slowly but surely, the wound began to close.
It wasn't easy and Pete was going to have a nasty scar, but he could walk and run without pain. As he looked at his mana bar, Jay was surprised to see that his trick took nearly his entire pool of mana. He only had enough to cast a single spell!
They obviously couldn't continue on without Jay's spells, so the group took a few minutes to relax. Instead of sitting awkwardly, Jay figured he might as well get to know his party.
"So Pete, what do you like to do for fun? Got any cool hobbies?" Jay wasn't sure how to start a conversation, but who doesn't like talking about hobbies?
"Yeah, I love baseball. I have…had this awesome collection of bats and signed balls. Wooden bats, metal bats, one potentially-illegal ivory bat. Man, I wish I could have brought that one with me."
"So, baseball. That makes sense. By the way, you've gotten really good with that thing in the last two days. What about you Eve? Have a cool and mysterious past you want to share?"
"Not really." Wow, she cleared didn't want to talk about it. Her two words kind of shut down the conversation, leaving Andrew to do all the talking. He was mostly talking to himself about what to call the fox, but it was better than nothing.
When Andrew had whittled it down to Addy or Foxy, Jay had finally gotten all the way back to 145 mana. With his tank full, he felt ready to take on some more monkeys.
They came across another 3 caverns before reaching the final boss, with the last one containing 2 of the apes. Jay was pretty sure he caught one of the girls drooling over him a bit after he slayed both monsters simultaneously, but it was hard to be sure.
Sarah still wasn't talking to him much, but she listened to his callouts and did what needed to be done. He was hoping he'd get the chance to talk to her about Luke sometime later. He really wanted them to get along, after all.
But when they took a look at the boss, there was nothing there. It was a big field with a few trees and no path forward, but they couldn't see any monsters. This scared Jay more than anything they'd seen so far, since he was sure it had to be in there. It was either invisible or it was smart enough to hide. Neither would be good for his team.
Knowing that the Den Mother could take a good hit, he had Andrew send her in first. As soon as she passed below the entryway, a fist came down and smashed into her head. "Above us!" Jay cried. He jumped out, avoiding the first coming towards him, and fired a twin lightning strike straight into the first body he saw. The ape toppled off the ledge, nearly lifeless, but it wasn't alone.
A second gorilla, smaller than the first, seemed to be casting some sort of magic. Before he could do anything, it had healed the first one up enough to fight. Having thought it to be dead, none of them had been paying attention to it. It swung a fist straight at Eve, sending her flying back. She landed on the ground, knocked out cold.
As much as he wanted to go make sure she was okay, Jay needed to take down the healer. So long as it was alive, they were all in trouble.
He couldn't reach it, so instead he sent twin lightning strikes at it. They both hit, but it seemed to be healing itself even as he hit it. If he wanted to win, he was going to have to hit it faster than it could heal.
Jay fired countless lightning bolts at the monster, willing it to fall down dead. It seemed to be weakening, but it was still doing significantly better than he'd like. Sarah, Pete and Andrew were busy taking care of the other one, and it wasn't long before he got a notification.
[Party member has slain a Juvenile Water Cercopes. 200 XP gained. You are in a dungeon. XP rewards will be given when you complete the dungeon.]
As his friends rushed to his side to help combat the healer, Jay felt they finally had a chance. His mana was almost empty and everyone had managed to get some cuts and bruises by this point, but they were alive. At least, he hoped Eve was still alive.
With the concentrated attacks of nearly their entire party, the floor boss finally fell.
[Party has slain Adult Healing Cercopes. 500 XP gained. You have completed the second floor of Level 1-10 Forest Cavern Dungeon. Would you like to exit and claim rewards or continue?]
[Exit], Jay commanded as he sunk to the floor, exhausted. With the usual magical flourish, the 5 party members were dumped outside the dungeon.
[[Choice accepted. Determining rewards…Rewards determined.
First floor clear rewards: 300 gems, Juvenile Water Cercopes core, Water Mage Robes (5x).
Second floor clear rewards: 500 gems, Adult Healing Cercopes core, Juvenile Water Cercopes core, Distortion Beast egg.
Please come again.]
[You have gained 1550 XP.]
[Level up! You have reached level 4.]
[Restoring user mana and health. As an Elemental Archmage, you have received +2 Intelligence and +1 Will. You have 3 unspent status points.]
Although it was enough to level him up, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the group. Jay poured as much mana as he could into a healing spell and hoped it was enough. Eve didn't wake up, but her breathing came more easily and her ribcage seemed to heal up.
When he had used as much mana as he could to help her, Jay fell backwards and passed out. He was pretty sure he had earned it.