When Evren had finally healed, and gotten permission from Doctor Harley, he began exercising in the mornings again. After three days of exercising, Evren said he was ready to go back down.
Walter asked, "Are you that bored?"
"Yes." Evren stated and then retracted, "No."
Further elaborating, Evren said, "I guess it would be closer to impatient."
"What do you have to be impatient about?" Walter asked.
"I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I just have a weird feeling like I'm running out of time." Evren said. "It's … It's probably Grandia that's got me all twisted up like this."
"Grandia? How so?" Walter inquired.
"It's the puppets. I want to set them free, but I have other things to do first. I don't even like calling them puppets." Evren complained.
"For that you have to go to Grandia." Walter said.
"Yeah, St. Gloria is the capital, and I'm pretty sure that's where the summons goes to." Evren rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Once their crystal is broke, I need to cure the curse they've got on them, or they become puppets without strings.
"I don't know how to remove a curse, so that's why I'm trying to reach the lich. If I can talk to it, maybe it'll know how to remove curses." Evren said with a sigh.
"That's putting a lot of luck on the lich talking to you." Commented Walter.
Evren looked at Walter for a few moments before nodding.
Two days later, the group had gathered and was finalizing preparations to head back down to the drakes. Evren had plans, and he had to advance them. Only by moving forward could he achieve his goals. The drakes were smarter than the wyverns were, but they were still just dungeon monsters.
The team moved down to the 110th floor and headed to the 111th floor where the drakes were. There was no drake at the beginning, like the last time, so they headed deeper in. As they went, Evren switched to using his bow instead of the spear to make things a little quicker. The drakes were land creatures and didn't need to be shot down or grounded by damaging their wings.
They were smarter, and more frequent in numbers than the wyverns. The drakes started out in groups of two to three in the upper levels, but as they descended, nearing the 120th floor they came in packs of up to twenty. By then they were using everything they had to kill the drakes as fast as they could. Both Harley and Evren would summon elementals to help fight with them. Evren would use his bow "overcharge" to kill them as they arrived.
Fletcher would cast 'discharge' on arrows and launch them into large groups of drakes. Isobel would appear from their blind spots and target their weak points, while Walter embodied the legendary dragon slayer, taking heads with every swing.
The only thing they couldn't defeat was the fatigue that built up. They took a break on the 120th floor, before the boss room, and defeated the twin drakes after forty-two days. The drops from the drakes were a shield and sword. The shield was a kite shield and had been made from a dark wood and adamantium. The sword, like Evren's own, was a single-handed weapon and made from adamantium. Evren, however, preferred his own sword, choosing instead to give the sword to Fletcher in case he had to fight something in melee range.
They spent four days in town, recovering and maintaining their gear before resupplying themselves and heading back down to the 120th floor. The next ten levels were going to be dragons. They were bigger than the drakes, had wings like the wyverns, and breathed fire. They were smart too. Very smart. If it hadn't been for Evren's sensory field, the first one they came across would have ambushed them.
Dragons have red scales, which differs from the earthly colors of the wyverns and the drakes. Their heads were adorned with horns that pointed backwards from behind the serpentine eyes. Their front legs had claws on them sharp enough to tear through steel like butter, and their tails were thick and strong. The wings of the dragons extended from their backs instead of being their front legs, like the wyverns.
The dragon fights lasted much longer than any of the previous levels. In the upper levels there would only be one or two at max, but the lower levels had up to four in a group with the occasional wandering dragon flying through the sky. They couldn't kill the dragons with one shot, their scales were just too tough. Even Evren's 'overcharge' bow could only pierce the scales like a normal arrow piercing a beast. Fletcher had lost his ability to contribute much to the party, so he instead fought with the dragons once they were on the ground with his sword.
Isobel's blades, when infused with magic, could slice through the dragon scales, but it took several overlapping cuts to disable. The dragon's tactics started with using their fire breath from the sky a few times, then landing to fight with its tail, claws and fangs. When the dragon got weak, it would try to fly back into the sky to use its fire breath again. Walter's sword's ability to 'cut' from a distance was invaluable to preventing the dragon from flying once they were weakened.
The two dragons they fought on the 130th floor were red and blue. While the red one was just like the previous dragons, just larger, the blue one had a frost breath instead of a fire breath. The group was heavily injured after this fight, so their break in Anbuton was longer than their previous one. Harley had actually lost her left hand in the fight, but instead of being upset about it, she was actually very excited.
"Mr. Evren, you're better at this than I am, so you're going to have to come visit me every day to cast 'regeneration' on me!" she said with a stern look.
"Yes Harley, you can count on me." Was his tired reply.
Evren had found a book on healing previously that had spells in it that he hadn't learned yet, 'restore' and 'regeneration.' Although he had used 'restore' on several occasions, he hadn't yet had a chance to, nor wanted to, use 'regeneration.'
In Evren's previous life, they had the technology to grow organs to be transplanted but had no way to regrow limbs. Prosthetic devices were pretty common though. Among the soldiers in his program, the prosthetics would be better than actual limbs because of the neural interface that would make it stronger and faster than a normal limb. Evren had used a few of those prosthetics before his retirement, but afterwards, he only had the civilian prescribed models.
The process of regenerating a limb was disturbing. The spell had to be cast at night, before the person went to bed. As the person slept, the limb would start to grow a little at a time. A small hand didn't form, but a full-sized hand would grow a little at a time starting from the base. For example, after ten days, she had the heel of her palm and the first knuckle of her thumb.
The items dropped this time were an adamantium spear and a scarletite bow. The bow could have magic injected into it and it would launch magical arrows made of fire, similar to the 'fire arrow' spell, but stronger. It could also fire regular arrows stronger than the mithril bow. The spear, when injected with magic, would be cold, and could freeze the things it touches.
During the downtime, Evren had read up on the elder dragons he would be facing next. There was one per floor. Each one of them a representative of the peak of their species. The colored dragons; red, blue, green, white and black, and the metallic dragons; silver, mithril, scarletite, adamantium and orichalcum.
Each dragon could use their own breath attack, and they could cast spells. Evren wasn't sure which spells they could cast though. Either way, it made him nervous. He wondered if they would be smart enough to talk. Or even if they would talk. Could they talk?
Thirty-five days after they returned from the 130th floor, they headed back down. When they got to the 131st floor, they found a boss chamber. The most confused of the group was Evren. Nothing in any of the books he had read about the dungeon, had ever mentioned that these floors would start off with a boss.
Still confident in their ability, they opened the door and stepped inside. In the center of the room was a small hill, that was breathing. When the door behind them closed, a red scaled head raised up and regarded them closely. A low vibration somewhere between a purr and a growl emanated from the dragon that was more felt than heard.
A voice appeared inside everyone's head. A mature and strong voice with just a hint of insanity said, 'Who is this that I see? Who appears before me? Is it food? Is it good? Tell me what it could be?'