The five of them stood there, in their armor, at the entrance of the 87th floor. A vast forest spread out in front of them, with a path leading through it. "We're not going that deep," Evren said. "I'll scout out some and grab one at a time and bring them back here."
Evren looked around for any objections but saw none. He ran down the path for a while, then disappeared off to the right side of the road. What emerged from the forest a few minutes later behind Evren was the body of a cat, and where the head would be a torso rose up to the body of a man. It was covered in a tan fur, with spots along the back that went up the back of the human-like torso. The hands ended in sharp claws. The face and head were a combination of human and feline with fierce eyes and sharp fangs.
An arrow hit the chest of the lamia staggering it for a second before it continued to chase down Evren. Evren dove to the side and rolled to his feet as the lamia swung its front paws at him. As Evren squared off against the lamia to see what it was going to do next the 'charge' spell on the arrow sticking out of the lamia's chest went off, stunning the lamia for a few seconds. Evren smiled at the results and ran the rest of the way back to the group as another arrow and a fire arrow flew past him.
The 'fire arrow' burned at the lamia and as it roared in pain Walter came running forward to help Evren. When Walter caught up to Evren, Evren turned around and drew his sword, Walter stopping just in front of him. The lamia charged at the two, the 'fire arrow's' duration having been met and extinguishing. It swept its hand down to claw at Walter, which he blocked, and in the same move, stabbed into the stomach of the lamia.
The lamia collapsed and died, a dagger sticking out of the base of its skull, and Isobel standing on its back. Walter looked at Evren who was smiling and back at Isobel who had a proud expression on her face and said, "I didn't even see her."
Evren nodded, "I had reduced perception enchanted onto the armor. It won't make you invisible, but if they're not paying attention, you won't be noticed."
The lamia dissolved, leaving a claw and a yellow mana gem. Evren picked the two up, dropping the mana gem in the pouch at his waist, and examining the claw. He turned it over in his hand saying things like, "Uh huh!" and "Oh yeah." Before tossing that into the pouch at his waist too.
Walter said, "Well?"
Evren shrugged, "I don't know. Just a claw, I guess. It seems tough but I don't know what to do with it." Evren pulled the claw out and handed it to Walter, "You want it?"
Walter looked at the claw, then back to Evren and said, "No." Evren shrugged again and dropped it back in the pouch.
"Well," he said, "that was easier than I was anticipating. There's a pair up ahead. If we take them down easy enough, I guess we can walk the path for a while."
He looked to Harley, "Don't summon any elementals, try to save those for the big fights as they consume a lot of magic. Good job with the 'fire arrow.'"
Harley beamed, "Thank you Mr. Evren."
Evren looked to Fletcher, who was picking up his arrow and said, "That worked out rather well, wouldn't you say?"
Fletcher smiled and replied, "I was going to use 'discharge' but I thought you might get hit too."
Evren nodded and said, "Yeah, definitely too close. Plus, it eats up a chunk of magic, so it would be best to save that kind of spell for a group. When I was down on the zombie floor, I'd run around gathering up groups of zombies and use explosion on them. Quick and easy way to get through the floor." Fletcher nodded repeatedly with a smile as he thought about the scenario.
A few hours later, Evren, Harley and Fletcher were lying down on the ground next to a fallen tree. Walter was standing some distance back with Isobel as they watched the trio. Evren looked to the right to Harley and Fletcher and nodded to them. They both nodded in return. Evren nodded as if to say, "Go ahead." To Harley and looked forward.
Ahead, at the edge of a clearing, stood a group of five lamia. They were grouped pretty close together, so Evren had hatched a plan. Harley cast 'deluge' directly above them while Evren cast 'freeze' at the same time. Fletcher launched an arrow that struck one of the lamias that was closer to the center of the group and released the 'discharge' spell. The lightning like explosion stunned all of the monsters. And was followed up by an 'explosion' cast by Harley and Evren.
When the smoke cleared, all that was left to do was collect up the mana gems and any claws, if they dropped. The group approached and examined the remains as they dissolved. Evren made the comment, "Fletcher, I wonder if you could fire that arrow while the water's still falling. The addition of water to electricity may help to expand the range of effect of the spell a little bit."
"Ok Evren, I'll do that next time." Fletcher responded.
"Other than that one thought, does anyone else have anything?" Evren asked.
Isobel said, "I didn't get to do anything."
Evren nodded, "I know, I was just thinking about what to do later down the road. I'm sure other ideas will come up. We'll have to fight large groups of monsters in the future, I'd like to find our best way to get as many down at once as possible."
Walter added in, "Then you probably didn't need to use 'freeze' there. Everything happened all at once and I'm not sure if it even mattered if you used it."
Evren looked to the frozen ground, "You're probably right. But in that same aspect, we probably could have done without 'deluge' too and could have gone with an arrow and a couple of 'explosions.'"
"Then why did you?"
Evren shrugged, "I wanted to test to see if 'deluge' and 'freeze' would work. If we use that against something like ground troops without a ranged attack, we can halt their movement while dealing with the ranged foes."
"Sounds like you're thinking of people now." Walter added.
"Yeah, I am." Evren said with a straight face, then looked up to the sky, "Let's head back for today. We'll grab anything along the way."
Along the way back to the 86th floor, Evren had Isobel do the scouting. He could sense where the monsters were, but he wanted to increase her capabilities. Her hearing was good, not something exceptional and her eyesight wasn't poor, she just wasn't used to focusing on them. Sharpening senses required using them in stressful situations. The slightest missed detail could lead to a difficult situation. This was why Evren was 'watching' over Isobel.
"Thinking over my goals," Evren started with, "aside from destroying the teleportation medium, I'd really like to set the summoned people free."
Walter frowned, "The puppets? Why?"
"From what Anomaly told me, they're the biggest victims." Evren replied.
"What do you mean Mr. Evren?" Harley asked with a serious face.
"The spell used to summon people seeks out someone weak, puts them in a frightening situation, and then kills them so the soul can be repressed. So, it could be more easily controlled." He explained. "Calling them puppets is pretty close to the truth, but there's a person in there too. I don't know if that person knows what it's doing or not, but they're being forced to do terrible things. They're cannon fodder soldiers, they're sex slaves, they're sacrifices, they're abused. I can't help thinking that if it were me and I couldn't control my own body to even speak; how would I feel."
"I don't think of you as weak, Mr. Evren." Harley said.
Evren's smile was melancholic, "When I was kidnapped, I was leaving the funeral of my youngest child, my daughter. She had been the last one left from my close family. I was crippled and emotionally weak. I'd say I fit the criteria at that moment. Anyway, that's my thought on the matter. Heads up, Isobel's got a few coming."
When they finally got back to Anbuton, Evren made sure they all did maintenance on their armor and weapons before letting them go home to rest. Their first day of hunting had gone well. There were no serious injuries that couldn't be healed with by magic, and all the armor protected its wearer. It was a good first time working together against a tougher foe. Evren considered that there would be a few more quick sessions like this one before the first excursion to completely conquer the floor.
He pulled the pouches out of his waist and tossed them on the table. He dumped out the claws and spread them out. "No matter how much I look at this, I have no idea what to do with them. I guess I'll ask Levi or Gallus tomorrow." He took the yellow mana gems and put them into the sack he kept the other yellow gems in. He had three large sacks that contained the mana gems he had gotten in the dungeon. The few cores he had gotten off monsters outside of the dungeon were haphazardly tossed into a single bag as there weren't nearly as many, and cores from goblins were tiny.
The next morning, Evren took the claws to Levi and asked him if he knew what they could be used for. Levi told Evren, "Oh those? You can work them like metal, but they won't weld together with other claws like metal would. I guess you can make them into arrowheads."
Evren looked at the claws and asked, "Would they be better than adamantium?"
Levi shook his head, "No. Probably better than mithril though. I think they'd probably go well with the manticore spikes and the feathers to make arrows, but that's just me thinking."
Evren sighed, "Why can't the dungeon just drop arrows? Wouldn't that make more sense?"
Evren handed the pouch of claws to Levi, "Do you want them?"
Levi took the pouch and looked through it. Uhh, sure. I'll see if I can make something out of this." He dumped the claws out on a bench nearby and tossed the empty pouch back to Evren. "Drop by when you pick up some more."
Evren caught the pouch and put it at his waist, heading to Joseph's house. When he arrived, Harley had already gotten there and greeted Evren at the door, "Hi, Mr. Evren!" she said as she stepped out of the way to let him in.
"Morning Harley." Evren replied.
Joseph looked up from the breakfast he was eating, "I heard you had a successful first day in the dungeon."
Evren nodded, "Yes, it went better than I had anticipated. I think that'll put me ahead of schedule a bit. Might be one or two more dips into the dungeon, then we'll make a run for the boss on the 90th floor. Floors are getting bigger and since we'd probably be traveling much faster than I was on the 84th floor, I'm not sure how long it would take to reach it, let alone defeat the boss. And if what I read is true about the 91st level and beyond, there's a lot of mountainous terrain ahead that could slow us down considerably."
Joseph replied with a shrug, "You can worry about the later levels later. Do you have enough room in that magic bag of yours for everyone to last a few weeks?"
It was Evren's turn to shrug, and he said, "I don't know. I haven't reached capacity with it yet. I think before we head down, we'll do some hunting down in the forest for some meat to make into jerky. I'll also empty out the bag of extra stuff before packing it up with everything. If it all fits, I'll pack enough for us for a month and then see how it goes.
"I really hope that I won't have to take the wagon with me through the mountains. Just thinking of the amount of work it would be gives me a headache."