Elsewhere

The third dungeon level greeted them quietly as was usual for all the level starts. Duke took a careful look at the level to see if he noticed any changes since the last run. He was relieved to see that he didn’t see any. Baslin gave him a “go ahead” nod and Duke tried his new Ability combo.

He activated the now well-practiced combo aimed into the nearest hole. His flash of CLARIVOYANCE showed the prairie dog’ confused reaction to the SILENCE Ability and the complete lack of sound coming from the hole told them that it was successful. Duke did the same on the next three nearest holes before they set out, rushing for the first hole.

When they reached it, the prairie dog was completely caught by surprise, not having heard them approach. The impact of Elaine’s paw was a disconcerting contrast of action, violence, and silence. Despite her strength, the prairie dog was much tougher than the base opponents on the previous two levels and managed to bite Elaine’s paw before her second strike killed it.

They turned to move on to the next hole to discover that somehow the entire colony had been alerted. Prairie dogs started pouring out of holes all over the area, charging the group.

“Plan B?” Grat asked.

“We had a plan B?” Duke responded.

“We do now.” Baslin added. “Blast them all!” He began the gestures for his spell.

Duke launched a strong arc of LIGHTNING at the closest group, causing the oddest crack of thunder as it echoed from some areas but not the others that were covered by SILENCE. Many prairie dogs that were struck collapsed, dead. A number more were stunned by the blast yet still dozens of them boiled out of the holes coming for the group.

Grat called the vegetation to action, gripping his staff in both hands and channeling his Spell through it. Vines burst from the ground to snare prairie dogs.

Elaine stood firm waiting to take the charge of the beasts, muttering something under her breath even in bear form.

Baslin finally completed his Spell as the lead prairie dogs got close. The ground trembled and fractured into hundreds of fissures radiating outward from the group. From each fracture, stone hands shot out to grab prairie dogs and drag them yipping into the fissures. In moments, the entire horde had disappeared into the ground, and the fissures began closing with a wet crunch.

Duke, Elaine, and Grat all stared at Baslin, mouths agape. He looked back quizzically. “Is there something on my face?”

“You just casually wiped out the entire horde with a single spell.” Duke said.

“Well, not the entire horde. Not really. You killed some too. And Elaine got one to start us off. And I’m fairly certain that Grat had strangled a few as well.” Baslin clarified. “Besides, I doubt that was all of them. The way Duke described the boss fight, there should be some left around here somewhere.”

Duke asked, “Is that the first time you have been able to cast a spell like that since being stuck in the tower?”

“Yes. It is the first time I have been able to really cut loose and just cast something fun. And with these being dungeon creatures, I can truly cast without concern for collateral damage. This is my new favorite place in the whole world.” Baslin beamed with joy.

"That was you having fun?” Elaine asked incredulously.

“Oh yes. That was so fulfilling. I can’t wait for the harder levels to come. Oh, the spells I can cast!”

Baslin’s joyous outburst was interrupted by the hum and whirl that Duke had described as the boss with its companions. The four of them looked at each other and ran forward to engage the boss, having all been infected with Baslin’s enthusiasm.

They charged through the area to see the swirling mass of prairie dogs taking flight. The sonic blasts were coming out of the ball of beasts randomly, some heading off into the distance to eventually fade away while others struck the ground tearing up patches of earth. The group did not pay much heed to the blasts until they got relatively close to the now flying dogpile.

Duke took flight shouting, “Let me hit it first. I’ll silence the whole thing!” He did not wait for a response as he flew straight at the boss and activated SILENCE. His Ability did nothing but make the magic shield flare in defiance. He dodged the few sonic blasts that came his way and reset his focus. OK, forgot about the shield. Let’s see if it can handle it if I really pump Mana into the Ability.

Duke flew around the boss, keeping it distracted as the rest of the team got into position below. He really didn’t know what their plan was, but he was flying, and every other concern faded before the feeling for him. He focused and poured a full 10,000 Mana into his SILENCE ability. The shield flared again and winked out followed by an absolute silence spreading across the entire battlefield.

The boss was suddenly exposed and falling along with all its companion prairie dogs. Baslin was angrily gesturing up at Duke and both Elaine and Grat were simply staring at him. Duke was greeted with a message:

***You have been silenced! No sound will be generated by any of your actions for the next 260 seconds. You cannot use Spells or Abilities that require verbal components during this time. ***

The message was accompanied by a countdown timer in the corner of his vision with a symbol that looked like someone holding their index finger vertically to their lips in the universal symbol for “shush”. Duke marveled at the situation and quickly realized why Baslin seemed to be so angry. Everyone had been silenced by the overcharged Ability.

Duke silently mouthed, “Sorry about that. Put too much Mana into it.” Well, he tried to shout it, but that didn’t quite work out. In the meantime, the prairie dogs and boss slammed into the ground hard enough to cause it all to shake. Grat lost his footing and flung his staff away in his instinctual panic. Elaine’s paw stopped him from falling over completely. She was on all four paws when the impact shockwave hit and had easily maintained her balance. He nodded at her in thanks and went to retrieve his staff.

Of the remaining foes, only the boss remained moving, and it was moving slowly. Its left forepaw was clearly broken, and it had sustained other injuries in the fall. Still, it limped towards the group silently chittering at them in fury.

Baslin nodded towards Elaine, and she smiled in return. She dropped down to all fours and charged headlong towards the boss, meeting its stumbling charge with claws and fangs. The fight didn’t last long. The injured boss was too slow for Elaine, and she was too fierce for it to keep up with. In less than a minute, the fight was over. It still took nearly another minute for the SILENCE effect to wear off.

Duke landed to join the rest of the group smiling sheepishly. “Heh. I silenced them.”

How much Mana did you pour into that Ability?” Baslin asked. Duke could hear the “leadingness” of the question as he shrugged and answered.

“Well, the first shot just bounced off the magic shield so I had to pour more into it to make sure it would penetrate.”

“How much Mana did your pour into that Ability?” Baslin repeated his question.

“About 10,000 extra Mana.” Duke answered with a wince.

“Seem like a bit much?” Baslin continued.

“It does now.” Duke responded.

“Remember that for the future. Imagine if that was one of your destructive Abilities like LIGHTNING. That could have arced all over the place and come down on us all. Just because you can pour that much Mana into an Ability, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to do so in other than dire circumstances. You agree?”

“Yeah. I get it. I keep forgetting how much of a boost I got when I Tiered up.” Duke shook his head as he realized how close he came to actually using LIGHTING with such a large Mana boost on the boss.

“Can we get on with looting and leaving the level?” Elaine asked. Everyone else agreed and they proceeded to do just that.

They quickly found themselves back elsewhere, in the ready room. The consensus of the group was that since they ran thought the third level so quickly, they really needed to take their time and train up before taking on a maxed-out fourth level. That, and they were all hungry – it was dinnertime!

Their dinner meal was spent talking a bit more seriously about strategy after Duke reinforced his caution about the upcoming two levels and just how hard that he expected them to be. “Remember, the third level that I faced alone had those things all over level 150. Nothing we have faced together has been anywhere near that high. I think the prairie dogs were more in the level 60 range in this past level. When we hit the fourth level, we should be ready to face level 200 base creatures and who know what level the boss will be.”

Baslin continued Duke’s thoughts, “The boss is likely to be at least a Tier 6 boss with extra abilities that are hard to deal with. What Duke hit us all with in there.” He paused to give Duke a long look which elicited a shoulder-scrunched “sorry” out of Duke. “The silence showed at least me one vulnerability. Without being able to cast my Spells, I am not useless in combat, but certainly more of a liability than an asset. We need to practice reducing our similar vulnerabilities. I was never a pure combat-mage. I have always been primarily an academic, but I am having so much fun running this dungeon that I can see the appeal of the combat-focus. Anyway, I stray. Here’s what I propose we practice on.”

Baslin laid out his training plan for the group and, after several changes with others’ input, they set to it. Much of the rest of the day was spent working together to overcome groups of training constructs. The team was getting closer and learning how to fight alongside each other with a growing sense of cohesiveness. This feeling carried through dinner and when they broke for the night.

Duke was excited to see what gains he received so forced himself to get to sleep quicky – an ability developed through years of military discipline. His dreams were filled with altered memories of air combat. The primary alteration was that he was flying without a jet in most of them. He was still launching missiles and using guns so that struck him as weird dream stuff. He awoke eager to read his messages.

*** You had quite the day, didn’t you? Your little group is getting quite good at this. Do you think it will be enough when you face an entire kingdom? We shall see, little mortal. We shall see.

You killed a few things and completed another repeated dungeon level. Boring. Take your experience and do something with it.

You gain a total of 26,254 experience. You are now level 8 and have 59 Characteristic points to spend.

Having shown previous proficiency in the Skill, you have been granted the Skill Aerial Maneuvering at Novice 10.

A number of your Abilities have also increased. Do you wish to see the changes in detail? (Y/N) ***

Duke declined the detailed information. He could tell that none of his Abilities had increased in rank but he knew he was getting close with a few. The most important Ability to him that was close was TELEPORTATION. It was sitting at Practiced 72. With 8 more levels in it, he could advance it to Adept. He was sure there would be interesting developments in the Ability at that rank. He resolved to train it heavily and see if he could get it there before they left for the fourth dungeon level.

He joined the rest of the crew for breakfast and then proceeded on to the training area. This was to be a week of no shortcuts and very high-intensity training. No one was willing to admit it, but they all were worried about what the fourth level would be like. Duke alone knew how vast a difference the levels were when they had reached their maximum age and level when compared to the easy runs they have had since. And even on one of the easy runs, they quite nearly lost Grat.

Duke considered all this as he spent his Characteristic points. Now that he was in the second tier, he was receiving a monstrous nine points per level and the levels were coming quickly. He had spent heavily on his Agility and Psyche so far and from how he fought, that made sense to him. The one thing he was concerned about was his reaction speed. He had the Agility to move quickly but if he didn’t recognize a threat until it was too late, that high Agility would not help him any. He poured a full 50 points into Intuition. Not really sure where to go next, he split his remaining 9 points between Strength and Endurance bringing both up to 60. He looked at the 43 Reason lagging the rest of his scores and shrugged. That was never his strong point. Instincts and common sense, sure. Book-smart? Not his thing. But spellbooks, that was something else entirely. Need more of those.

After the full week of training, they all saw significant gains. Duke managed to rank FORCE DART, POISON DART, CLEANSE and FLIGHT all to the Initiate rank. He was disappointed that he wasn’t able to get TELEPORT beyond level 77, but it was close now. He was sure it would rank up after completing the next dungeon level.

They all stood before the portal ready to enter the fourth level. Sam’s insistent reminding of their “enter the level or leave the dungeon” countdown was the final push for the group. They entered the fourth level.