As aggressive as they claim the dungeon to be, there were too many people around.
Larger groups of part gazelle part Rhoat monsters have attacked them but they could always see other parties facing the same monsters.
Another monster that prowled the grassland was the kobolds he heard Rowent and the others have fought. They were less than a metre tall with a lizard and wolf mix of facial features and their bodies were furless and scaleless. Skin much like humans. Not sure if they were changed by the dungeon in any form since the Identified as [Kobold]s.
They wore half metal half leather armour, not unlike the freelancers Ebony had seen and used an array of weapons, mostly clubs, hatchets or bow and arrows. Their ability with them was crude but had quite a lot of speed and power to them. At least they were stronger than an enhanced Ebony. Not as awesome as it sounds considering their level gap. Ebony's movement speed almost rivals theirs.
As with the Geoats, they didn't seem to have much intelligence and it was; kill on sight for them. The party dealt with them but if there was one thing to say about their party was that their teamwork was nothing short of horrible. They essentially split the monsters up and fight their own battles most of the time.
It was quite troubling for them when the kobolds started fighting together with the Geoats. The last battle even had the kobolds riding the Geoats. They even started to have a semblance of teamwork, likely learning from other parties' fighting styles.
The dungeon also wasn't so dumb, too many monsters have been killed in a short period of time and the number of attacks greatly reduced over the span of 3 to 4 hours.
Ebony had no qualms mass killing these almost mindless monsters. They were the dungeon's robots. He didn't sense life in them.
Sadly, they didn't make much progress in terms of exploration. Still, the grassland was large and Ryley and Scarlet who separated from time to time scouted ahead but didn't find any way up or down yet. Ebony never stopped his 3D Mental Mapping.
Tuffock fought defensively seeing the constant attacks, he was conserving mana. So was Hector, he got slower and less efficient in fighting. Ebony guessed he was using perhaps just 1 type of enhancement at any one time.
Ebony saw Scarlet…dissect the Geoats with heated swords and the heated sphere thing does the roasting. She didn't seem too tired as it hardly took her much effort to slay a single one or well, ten of them. She didn't leave the kobolds uncooked either.
Ryley was troubled by quickly picking and reusing his arrows as the dungeon tried to take unattended foreign material a little fast. Fortunately, Hector was right and the dungeon's behaviour or ability to do so was slowing down.
Ebony was Ebony. As efficient as always. The number of enemies didn't really change the way he fought. His shields were only used to take some hits for Tuffock so far.
"Stamina and mana levels. 70%, 90%" Ryley demanded after sharing his own. He was the highest level with the highest stats and didn't use magic so it was no surprise his resources were still mostly topped up. Ebony wondered where he used mana on.
"Half and half." Hector replied. Understanding the need to know each others' conditions before moving forward.
It was actually pretty impressive for him to have fought 7 or 8 consecutive battles and still have half his resources. The enemies had higher stats than him which made it even harder to deal with them as efficiently as their party did.
"3..3 quarters and thi..thirty percent."
Tuffock stayed almost stationary throughout battles and he hopped on Ebony's shield for movement so he still had most of his stamina. He probably didn't use much of his staff's power since there was not much need to. As a dedicated mage but with no Sub-Class and its stats, still having thirty percent mana was pretty awesome. Ebony would have emptied out by the first or second battle with the way he spends mana.
"60, 85."
Ebony was pretty sure Scarlet used fire magic more than a few times. Being the lowest level after Ebony made her exert quite some stamina. She just slew her enemies so much faster than Hector did.
"...Enough." What was Ebony supposed to say? 100% stamina? 95% mana?
The party was obviously not happy with his words. He wasn't exactly being cooperative and it was hard to plan what's next if they didn't know each other's conditions.
"90?" Ebony didn't really like to lie but they weren't gonna believe him if he said he had full stamina.
"You're kidding… and why's that a question?" Hector had visible doubt written all over his face that wasn't hidden under his helmet.
"Wh..what about your mana? Yo..you've been manipulating those shields for forever now. Aa.and I haven't seen you without your ice elemental enhancement."
"Will you believe me if I told you that both are over 90%" Ebony felt better that he wasn't exactly lying now. They ignored him after that with grumbles and complaints, mostly from Hector.
There was still daylight and they weren't tired.
It was not easy to level up even with the 20 level gap. Ebony only levelled once for his main class.
Ebony was unaware that dungeon monsters don't give as much experience as natural born monsters. Even if they mostly fought solo battles the experience sometimes split among each other as well.
One thing he figured was that Battle Song doesn't buff his allies if the mana wasn't his. Which was to say people out of his almost 10 metre range wouldn't get the buff even if they can hear the song. Even then, if he didn't fill the 10 radius with his own mana, compressed or not, they still wouldn't get the buff. A little disappointing but it made sense to Ebony. It would take too much effort and focus if he were to try the string of compressed mana idea. Wasn't worth it for the minuscule increase, at the moment.
It was a little safer now that they don't see any monsters around.
Ryley, Scarlet and Ebony split up and scouted while Hector stayed with Tuffock to protect him. Hector should conserve his resources for an eventual battle as well.
They also exchanged contacts on the callstone. They should be able to reach each other within the same dungeon even on different floors since they were in the same space. Communication with people outside the dungeon wasn't possible though. At least not with their callstones.
Ebony played with it a little. He couldn't send any messages through it if the other party doesn't 'pick up' or accept the link. He could talk or call multiple people at the same time. The mana cost was taken from the closest connected mana ore in his myriad bracelet. The caller was the one who supplied the mana cost.
Hector's was of higher rarity, it had a wider range and even transmission speed. There would be a lag depending on the distance between the two callers. If Ebony was out of range of his callstone, Hector can still call Ebony if they were within the range of his callstone but not vice versa. He had to speak up into it and the sound would come out from the bracelet or callstone itself. Though they were connected by mental magic it seems like it was not a telepathic tool. So others can overhear the contents of his call.
Monsters shouldn't be able to spawn just anywhere so they likely didn't have to worry about monsters popping up beside or behind them. There should be spawn points or spawning nodes as they call it. Camping it would be pointless since the dungeon can just move the nodes. Send more monsters to kill the party camping there, do other stuff to get rid of the party or just not use that spawn point.
Ebony thought he was seeing things when bushes started growing from time to time. It was still grassland for as far as his eye could see.
They got Hector and Tuffock to move in a straight line as the 3 of them branched off forward.
Ebony saw 2 parties with 9 people in a 'death battle' with over a mix of over 30 Geoats and kobolds. There was what looked like a large crop circle with weird shapes and lines on the ground. Maybe it was the spawning node.
Ebony just linked to all 4 of his party members and told them his general direction before moving to assist. He thought he wouldn't be declined or seen as taking their prey since there was half a body getting eaten by 2 Geoats and a kobold. The other half had probably already been eaten.
The levels of the two parties were around 85-90 but they didn't seem too capable of fending the wave of monsters off. Hardly any other than the archer and rogue was uninjured if not exhausted.
Unfortunately for them, Ebony was incapable of mowing the monsters down. Even a good hit from Ebony caused naught but a deep gash. Monsters were also different from the animals he used to hunt barehanded on Earth. They could move their bodies as per normal even with deep wounds or what should have been heavy injuries. Ebony's offensive ability being considerably weak.
9 of them were fighting on 2 main fronts, they were being boxed in.
The party of 4 was doing much worse with a gap in their formation. The gap was likely a warrior or vanguard, only a rogue and a dwarven warrior, armour clad with a thick shield, held the line with 2 archers supporting them. Their enemies numbered 13, mostly kobolds.
The Dwarf seemed pretty capable though. For some reason, most of the kobolds were focusing attacks on the Dwarf and he managed to defend against most attacks.
1 of the archers was down on the ground with crude arrows sticking out of her right shoulder and thigh.
The rogue was trying his best but his ribs were probably injured, maybe even broken or so Ebony thought from the way he moved and protected his side.
Ebony stabbed all 3 of his shields down, covering the archer that got shot. It shocked and scared them at first seeing 3 huge blue masses flying towards them.
He appeared beside the steadily overwhelmed Dwarf with a few steps and lightened the pressure off of him. Ebony gave a wide horizontal swing with his bulky but now not so heavy greatsword. It struck nothing as the Geoats and kobolds jumped back to avoid the blow.
"Rogue. Get within the shields."
Ebony had realised that dungeon monsters were a little attracted to him, seeing how he had been targeted by the bulk of the monsters when their party got attacked.
He pushed the majority of them back away from the Dwarf with a pushing charge similar to when he was playing around with his swordsmanship while running when he hunted those Rhoats. Promptly flashing a compressed Frost Mist Perception Sphere for a second, not so much for perception really. The 2 Geoats and 5 club and hatchet swinging kobolds were covered in a thick layer of frost on their skin.
An Ice Sword formed above Ebony as it was let loose at the kobold archer who pulled its bowstring back. It dodged. At least it had to roll away and had its shot interrupted.
The rogue apparently didn't take Ebony's advice as he took the chance and went after the 4 archer kobolds. Reckless. At any rate, Ebony wasn't one to comment about recklessness.
The relatively uninjured archer didn't let the opportunity go either and sent two arrows barrelling into the one of Geoats who had their necks and torso stiffen from their weakness to cold and frost.
The Dwarf was visibly exhausted as his arm holding a war axe limped down but the slowed kobold was relatively easier to handle.
There were 2 more Geoats that Ebony couldn't get in his range.
Ebony wanted to take down at least one kobold to lighten the load of the Dwarf but the healthy Geoats stepped in to push Ebony away from the party.
The monsters were dead set on getting another one killed but realised they were unable to break Ebony's shield.
The injured rogue played himself as he couldn't even keep up with the kobold archers anymore with his sluggish movements. The other 3 kobold were shooting one after the other to get him. They obviously managed to do so.
The group of kobold archers was out of Ebony's range to send a shield to defend him. Ebony could send his shield flying like a projectile but it'll do more harm than good. It won't be in his control once it is more than 10 metres away from him.
Ebony's movement speed was fast and should be able to reach him within a few steps. If he wasn't delayed and pulled down by 2 Geoats anyway.
A blood curdling scream escaped the rogue's mouth as an arrow found its way into his eye. Then mouth. Stomach. Heart.
Ebony didn't need to check to know that he was dead.
The archer who supported the Dwarf was also targeted by those less affected by Ebony's frost. Too distracted by keeping pressure off the Dwarf, the kobold archers turned to land an arrow right into the archer's side. It was aimed at his stomach but the kobold either missed the mark or the archer managed to move slightly right before it hit.
Ebony stayed as calm as ever even with the death of the rogue.
He wasn't able to instantly kill the 2 Geoats like Scarlet or Ryley who had insane firepower. However, enough ice mana had been dished out into his enemies bodies for Ebony to flash away with another Treading Step. Protecting the archer.
Having no leeway, he retook the shields from the downed archer. Using them to push and smash into the nearby monsters. Trying to box them up together like they did to the party. In hindsight, he should have done this to begin with but, he only just thought of it.
Perhaps, he wasn't calm enough to think of this idea at the start. Perhaps, he chose to step in to help them before coming up with any idea. Doesn't matter which it was. He already let one die.
The 3 shields moved in tandem, they shifted around along with Ebony. Ebony's greatsword didn't stop swinging.
The Geoats were only knocked around when they were caught off guard, having noticed it, they could easily resist or even push back against Ebony's shields. The kobolds were pretty helpless against the heavy, bulky and massive things.
The Dwarf called for the archer to take shots at the kobold archers.
It was at this moment that he saw a gaping hole appear where the kobold heart was. A long metal arrow on the ground in front of it. What caused a small crater to appear outside the dungeon only managed to dig into the ground without causing much destruction.
Ryley was probably in range already.
The surrounding temperature rose sharply.
Scarlet descended.
So did the monsters.
Into the afterlife, if they had one.