The creature lunged forward and closed the distance. Suddenly a large man grabbed its ankle and swung it powerfully into a wall. The creature bounced off the wall and retaliated quickly. Its claws reached for the man's throat. Zeke, however, raised his shield, deflecting the claws.
Percy dashed out from behind the man and cleaved down with his sword. The creature raised its own claws and blocked the blow cleanly. Zeke utilized the distraction to sweep the creature's legs out from under it. Percy's sword drove the claws to the side as it stabbed its smokier shoulder.
Zeke slammed his massive boot onto the creature's stomach, pinning it to the ground. It screeched loudly and reached up its claw scraping straight through Zeke's heavily armored thigh. It sunk into flesh and the large man grunted.
Percy's sword flashed, quickly severing the creature's attacking arm at its elbow. Zeke brought down his hammer onto its face and smashed its head into the stone floor. Yet still its toughness and vitality was impressive. Only mildly damaged and stunned by the attack it tried to retaliate.
Percy's sword shot foward and went straight through its wooden mask face. Percy stood up, his sword resting at his side as he looked at Jaycee. "You weakened this thing that much?" He said.
Jaycee nodded, "I mean those guys helped." He said, gesturing to the burnt to charcoal bodies. They had only efficiently dismantled the creature in its weakened and surprised state. It seemed one of its weaker stats was perception.
Percy looked around and shook his head. "Is this where the priestess was being held? That's what all the old bastard priests are saying in their little safe house." Percy said.
Jaycee nodded as he stumbled over to the bathroom door and knocked on it. "The creature is dead. Secret code: this is a dungeon." He said.
The door opened slowly with Kara leading the way and the priestess being close behind. Jim and two more soldiers filed out. "What happened to the third guy?" Jaycee asked. Kara jutted her thumb backward to a humanoid lizard person who had been pretending to be a soldier.
Jaycee recognized the soldier as being one of the ones who came in with Jim. "I felt something was off with him. I could sense a powerful weapon under his sleeve. So I went on the hunch and killed him when he moved a little too suddenly there. The weapon in his sleeve broke down the second he died though." Jim explained.
Jaycee did not think Jim had the guts to do that. Of course they are just dungeon characters but still. The other soldiers were rubbing the back of their heads and talked confusedly about how they had been talking to the man normally only minutes ago. "I've kinda had the hunch the whole time. The perception stat is no joke." Jim said.
Suddenly Jaycee's vision shifted as he entered the weird string plane. Strings snapped, but way more strings appeared. Just as quickly his consciousness returned to the dungeon. "Good work." Jaycee said a little miffed by his experiences.
"Jim and Kara." Percy said, nodding as he looked the two other soldiers up and down.
"You two go watch the door." Jaycee said. They could finally get a decent group conversation with the dungeon divers. Percy quickly asked Jaycee for a quick summary of events.
"We first landed and some guy is going like, 'watch priestess'. So I watch the priestess. I get these guys going and we get some reinforcements. The dungeon characters get restless and I send some to scout. They die, I see it, I get hit. We backup into here and get ready for it to break through. The rest of the soldiers fight it with me and I'm able to weaken it and you guys come in." He said pretty quickly.
Percy nodded. "Alright cool. So the objective is probably to protect this priestess while the whole temple essentially abandons her and kills the mercenaries they would've had to pay by sending them to these intruders." A few other soldiers that had been running behind Zeke and Percy came through the door.
There were four more of them and they looked at the state of the room and looked at the dead creature. Jaycee had gained two whole class levels from the fight. "We just killed one other intruder, and we found out through interrogating him that we're looking at 5 total individuals. From what we've seen we guess this is the intruder that was creating all the assassin carnage in the halls.
The one we defeated was just charging around and killing randomly creating chaos. Although I don't see the bow the assassin has been using." Percy explained.
"It was created off of its smoky body parts." Jaycee said. He had caught a small glimpse when he had almost gotten his head taken off.
"Oh okay. The third is the one you killed in there. Master of disguise I guess. But had poor stats." Percy said, looking to Jim for confirmation. Jim nodded. "So we can guess there probably isn't another disguised intruder but let's not be certain. I haven't even heard of what the others are. Dammit this temple is massive.
Dion was killed by the intruder Zeke and I defeated. We've seen Farrah and Lady half an hour ago still locked up with the rest of the old priests. Lady's a servant and Farrah was a priestess in training. Technically Zeke is a disciple but he just came with me when I was forced out. So we're still missing Preston, Jake and Lauren." Percy described.
"What's the plan?" Kara asked.
"We get mobile. This room is totaled. There's other secure rooms in the temple. Preferably we go back, get Lady and Farrah, and come together to look for the rest of the team while protecting the priestess. However that sounds like a lot of risky movement while carrying the precious package.
Not to mention the priests will not want us taking her there. We split up. Some of us go back to the main secure room and get Lady and Farrah to the group. The others take the priestess and search for any of the other team members while looking for secure places. Hopefully these last two intruders don't team up or it will be a serious problem.
But I'm confident with the full team we have a really good chance at taking down the other intruders. Now just for who goes where." Percy paused to let everyone soak the information and offer any opinions. No one had any particular ideas and Jaycee had finally been allowed to take a backseat role. "Alright then if no ones opposed I'll make the teams." Percy said. "I'll go with Jaycee and three of the soldiers with the Priestess to a more secure room.
You guys should be able to get them and come back to the large prayer room two floors down. Zeke knows what I'm talking about. Be fast but do not be careless. I split up the groups so that we should be able to handle one of the intruders each. But if you encounter two try to find backup as soon as possible. Alright let's go." Percy moved quickly with Jaycee following close behind him.
Jaycee chugged down one of his mana potions as he guided the priestess to follow them. She was scared of all the things happening around her. The bathroom door was also enchanted by magic and was able to hold back the fire storm.
But it was difficult to look at her unrecognizable room. Jaycee pulled the two soldiers who had survived and one of Percy's soldiers with them as they started down one direction of the hall. The rest of the group went the other way. The soldiers were tense after seeing the mass slaughter of their fellow mercenaries.
They talked quietly among themselves and to Jaycee. A few minutes later the desolate halls only had the occasional blood splash. Yet there were no bodies which was interesting seeing as they should've seen the two soldiers that had been killed earlier.
But he saw nothing but blood. "Jaycee. How do you think I would've done if I faced the creature we just killed alone?" He asked.
Jaycee glanced at the slightly older man. "Assuming you have backup big final moves and assuming I don't know your full strength, you would maybe take half of its health before you die." Jaycee said.
"But if you were in my situation I believe you could've killed it. The other soldiers helped more than you think." Jaycee explained. It was a deathly tough opponent.
But Percy's ability to work tangentially with other people while fighting was top notch and much better than Jaycees. There were several times where his spears of flame got in the way of a soldier. And Jaycee believed that if Percy had been in his position the whole time, they would've been able to take the creature down without any outside help.
He might've trusted Jim and Kara more and let them help him in his attempt to kill the creature. Jaycees' distrust showed starkly in the moment. Percy looked the teenager up and down. 'So interesting.' He thought. The halls were much larger where they were walking now as they entered the core of the temple.
Suddenly loud sounds of banging could be heard in the distance. Jaycee and Percy reacted and began moving just fast enough for the other soldiers and the priestess to keep up. As they rounded the corner they saw a scene of a human woman smashing a large staff against a green shield. She had blond hair and blue eyes.
Beneath the shield was Preston and Lauren. Lauren was laying on the ground looking up in fear at the woman who relentlessly attacked Preston's powerful shield.