"Harley!" Evren yelled to warn the girl.
Harley activated her feather cloak and rose to its maximum height. The lamias swarmed over where she was, barely unable to reach her. She pulled up the bottom of the cloak and her legs to give herself a little more room. "'Deluge!'" she chanted in a voice tinged with fear.
"'Freeze!'" Evren yelled half a second later causing the lamia to get frozen to the ground. Two knives flew in rapid succession into the feline sides of two separate lamia, and an arrow pierced a third one. Harley began flying away from the frozen group as the 'charges' detonated, stunning the three lamia that were struck. Two of the lamias had avoided the water and were still chasing after Harley when Walter intercepted them.
He swung his sword in a wide arc, causing the lamia to stop or they would get hit by the blade. The left one got struck by an arrow, low on its stomach. Evren ran past the left one, drawing his sword down the side of the monster, causing a large wound. As the lamia turned to follow Evren, the 'charge' spell discharge stunning it. Evren continued to the group of seven lamia that were previously targeting Harley.
Two of the stunned lamias had dropped to their knees and the third had its lower half frozen in place and was just slumped over. Isobel climbed on the back of one, slicing along the back of the head with her dagger, and leapt across to another frozen lamia, slicing its wrist as it reached out to her. She grabbed the arm and swung under it, pulling the upper body to her now opposite side and firmly planted her feet on the feline body. She pulled the arm she was still holding on to, that was stretched behind the lamia's back so she could get closer to it and stabbed it in the heart.
Walter attacked the right lamia with his sword, hacking downward at it from above, cutting its abdomen open, he followed up with a stab towards the chest that penetrated deeply. Next to him the sliced open and stunned lamia was getting pelted with magical arrows that disappeared shortly after striking it.
Evren slid across some ice, chopping at the rear legs of one of the lamias, causing it to roar. It was close to another, so as he ran past it, he cast 'wall' between him and the two, instead choosing to go deeper to the lamia in the back. Harley had recovered, and while still in the air was launching skewers at the two that Evren had just walled off.
Walter finished the one he was on and seeing the one to his left was already dying, he moved forward. He finished off the one who Isobel had slashed across the neck with and moved on to the ones Harley was pelting with rock lances. Isobel was dancing from the back of one lamia to the next leaving slashes on them on the way that slowed their movements down considerably. With Evren trying to follow behind the nimble woman, finishing off lamia as he passed them.
As the last lamia died, all of the party members turned back to the boss, which was much larger than the rest. "Fletcher, 'discharge!'" Evren called. Fletcher fired an arrow at the boss lamia, and everyone covered their ears and closed their eyes as the arrow released the spell with a deafening roar, which echoed off the boss's chamber's walls amplifying the intensity.
The boss was staggering about as the rest of the party charged towards it. Harley cast a 'fire wall' behind the boss that as it was backing up, catching the back legs of the boss in the flames. It jumped forward, still disoriented as Harley cut off magic to the wall to prepare for her next spell. Walter had reached the boss already and had swung at its front legs to try to get it down to a accessible level.
Evren was walking forward toward the boss while healing some of the cuts he had received during the initial charge. Fletcher was firing magic arrows at the boss and Isobel walked up beside the walking Evren saying, "Did you get tired old man?"
Evren looked to Isobel with a challenging smile and said, "Nope, just letting the others have fun too."
Isobel scoffed, "That's no fun. Come on! It'll be dead before you get to it!" and ran off towards the large lamia.
Evren watched her go and took a quick look at the others. Everyone seemed to be doing fine without further directions from him and were working well as a team. It had taken them ten days to reach the 90th floor. Which Evren was pleasantly surprised about as the only thing that had really slowed them down was the size of the floor itself. The lamia had posed no real threat to them once they began their expedition.
When Evren finally reached the boss, it was already in the process of dissolving. A large yellow mana gem was left in place, and a pair of heavy gauntlets. Curious, Evren picked up the pair of gauntlets and examined them. They were more solidly built than he would think a pair of gauntlets would be. There was no dexterity in them, and they felt more like metal boxing gloves, with a series of straps along the wrist to hold it securely in place.
He tossed one to Walter and the other to Isobel and said, "I think those would be best used for some melee fighter. What do you think?"
Walter put one on after removing his own gauntlet and nodded, "Yeah, it feels like making a fist is really natural. It's heavy, but it feels tough."
Isobel added, "I agree, you wouldn't be able to hold a weapon with these things on."
Evren took them back and tossed them into the magic bag. They exited through the back door and activated the glyph to return them to Anbuton. They arrived and headed back to town, Harley running ahead to tell her family that she was home. "Good job everyone. Take a break, don't forget to do maintenance on your equipment, and I'll see you in the morning. Evren said as he headed to the house he was staying at. He dropped his backpack on the table and pulled a sack full of claws out of it.
He headed over to drop the sack off with Levi, planning to do some maintenance on his equipment at the forge. The armor had taken a few hits and tore some rings he needed to repair. "Ahh! Welcome back Evren!" Levi called out to him.
Evren dropped the sack of claws on the bench Levi was working at said, "Thanks Levi. I'm going to use the forge if you don't mind."
"Not at all, are these more claws? He asked.
"Yep, what were you planning to make with this?" Evren asked as he began to take off his armor.
"Well, I was thinking of making it into armor. Scale, like yours, but using the claws flattened out instead." Levi replied.
Evren got a look of surprised interest, "Oh yeah? Have you put anything together yet?"
Levi walked over to a box and pulled out the mail he had been working on, "Ouch, damn it." He said as he set the mail down on the bench next to the sack.
"You alright?" Evren asked.
"'Heal cut.' Yeah, I'm ok. The scales are a little sharp and it catches me sometimes."
Evren walked over and looked at the swatch of claws scales and ran his finger over the top of them. "Interesting. Although I wouldn't want to wear it, it really looks interesting."
Levi chuckled, "I don't blame you. I may just put it on a mannequin and make it into a family heirloom." In a decrepit voice, Levi said, "Your great-great-great-great grandfather, Levi the 1st used that in the war against Grandia!"
Evren laughed, "Levi the 1st huh?" He turned his armor inside out until the area where the damage was and inspected it closely. A couple of the cut rings were still hanging on, so Evren grabbed those and set them aside. He took a bag of rings he had left at the forge and began stitching the damage back together again, cold riveting the rings closed. It took him no more than half an hour, the two talking joyfully as they worked.
"What's the monster you're going to fight next?" Levi asked.
"Harpies." Evren replied, "I have a feeling I'll be shooting my bow more these next five levels."
"Oh yeah, Gallus came by the other day talking about the ent wood. He seemed a bit grumpy."
Evren stopped what he was doing and remembered the ent, "Ah crap. I totally forgot about that in the middle of making everything. It should be spring up there, so I'll talk with the others, and we'll go get the ent before moving on to the next set of floors."
The next morning Evren arrived at the training grounds with the wagon. "Hey everyone!" He called out to them, "We forgot to get the ent wood for Gallus. So, before heading down to the next few levels, I'd like to go up top and chop down a tree. Would any of you care to join me?"
Fletcher said, "I'm not sure how effective my arrows are going to be against a tree."
Evren replied, "I've got a couple of axes, you can use one of them. My sword's a little light, but it is sharp enough that I should be fine with using it. Unless you guys want to see if we can back-door the minotaur boss."
"How do we test that?" Walter asked.
"Hmm…" Evren thought for a minute. "Let me see if I can do it on the 5th floor really quick and I'll let you know. It's just a little lizard and shouldn't take more than a minute. If I can do it there it should be no problem on the 80th floor.
"You guys go get changed into your armor and meet me at the glyph." Evren said as he started pulling his wagon to the teleport glyph. When he reached the glyph, he left the wagon in place, putting magic into the glyph and thinking of the 5th floor. He was enveloped in light and appeared at the back door of the boss chamber. He gave a push to the solid stone doors, and they easily swung inward. He walked towards the center of the room, and the hooded lizard was there.
As he went to kill the lizard, it spit at him and he quickly cast 'shield' blocking a majority of the poison, only a little hitting the floor in front of him. "I forgot this guy's a spitter." He said as he swung his sword, slicing the lizard in half. A small green mana gem and a copper ring fell to the floor. He picked up both and headed back the way he came, touching the glyph on the outside of the door to teleport himself back to Anbuton.
When he arrived, Harley and Fletcher were approaching, but nobody else had arrived yet. "Fletcher asked, "Did it work?"
Evren nodded and tossed the copper ring to him and all he said was, "Yep."
Fletcher looked at the ring after he caught it, "What's this thing do?"
Evren shook his head and shrugged, "No clue. It didn't say in the book I got from the adventurer's guild. It didn't really mention boss drops until the weapons started to drop with the undead."
Fletcher looked back down at the ring, "Well, it's gotta be useful for something. What is the boss like?"
"It's called a hooded lizard, it's got this frilled skin thing going on that makes it look bigger, and it spits poison at you. Other than that, I don't know. It doesn't usually last that long." Evren replied, mimicking the frills behind the head of the lizard.
"Maybe it has something to do with the poison? Poison resistance?" Fletcher thought about the possible applications of the ring for a bit.
"You can keep it and test out that poison theory if you're interested." Evren said with a smile. "I've got another one just collecting dust as well."
While they were discussing the ring, Isobel and Walter arrived. Evren started with, "I tested the back-door to getting to the boss and it worked. Now, the minotaur lord that is the boss of the 80th level, and the one that drops the mithril battleax is a big fella. It's all alone in there, which makes it easier than the lamia boss, but its skin is tough, and it's a lot faster than it looks.
"Keep your distance from it if you can. If it catches you with that axe, you'll go flying. But it'll charge anyone that is too far away from it. When it gets up to speed, it doesn't turn that easily, so you can jump out of the way if you time it correctly. If it faces your way, side step until it isn't facing towards you. Don't get caught on the tracks."
"What do you mean by tracks?" Isobel asked, and the others nodded.
Evren tilted his head as he thought of a way to respond, "Picture two long sticks on the ground with the wagon wheels being just inside the sticks. The wagon will move forward fine, but it'll have problems if it is trying to turn because of the sticks being in the way. Those sticks are the tracks. If you're standing on the tracks, the wagon will hit you, but if you aren't, it'll pass by.
"So, imagine two sticks sticking out from the feet of the minotaur pointing straight ahead. If you're between them, just step to the side and get off them."
Isobel and the others nodded in understanding. "Got it. Thanks Evren."