The Outlands

Tess looked at her current list of Attributes, mentally going through them and trying to decide what to get rid of. The new ones she had received form the slug were quite a bit nicer than she had expected for a monster that was level twenty-four, if the core was to be believed. Even so, its stats and abilities wouldn’t make sense on something of that level unless it was a boss.

She supposed that was because savage dungeons were meant to be harder than normal dungeons. Making the mid-bosses around the strength of a normal dungeon’s main boss would certainly serve that purpose. Fortunately, that sort of difficulty only served to make the rewards she got from it that much better.

In particular, she was looking at two Attributes, and trying to figure out what to replace for them.

She had been focusing on Artisan of Affliction for the past while, so she hadn’t leveled up Monster Breeder in a while. Fortunately, as she looked through her list of Attributes, there were two she hadn’t used in quite a while, Haunting Wail and Decaying Touch. Both where things she had received from Isabella’s core, and since Isabella was inside Tess most of the time, she was the one that usually ended up making use of that kind of stuff.

These two new Attributes would work with her skillset far more cleanly than those two ever had, so she really didn’t feel bad about letting them go. After the few minutes it took to remove the Attributes from herself, she put the new ones on, and almost immediately her claws began to drip with a clear liquid. The acid sort of…evaporated a few seconds of being away from Tess’s claws, and unlike the ball of acid the slug hat spat, it didn’t sizzle or otherwise react with the floor.

“What kind of acid is that?” Maven asked, giving Tess’s claws a wary glance.

“Apparently, it’s the same as whatever stomach acid is made of, but a lot stronger?” Tess said. “So…um, don’t touch it?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Maven said. “Just curious.”

Tess switched off the Attribute, watching as the liquid on her claws disappeared. “I’m going to keep that off unless we’re in battle.” She said. “It seems like it’ll just be too easy for accidents to happen if I don’t. Anyway, that’s all I needed, you two ready to go?”

“Yes.” Maven said. “I’m ready.”

“Let’s be off, then.” Ellie said, standing up.

The three of them resumed their trek through the dungeon, and were met with similar results to how things were before. Roughly two thirds of the rooms they came across were the kind with a lot of weak monsters, and while they tried a few of those, they eventually decided to avoid them for the time being.

The other rooms varied, but fit a few main themes. The easiest of those themes to deal with was rooms with fewer, but stronger monsters. This might mean a miniboss, like the slug, or it could be a few large monsters that weren’t quite strong enough to be minibosses on their own.

Unfortunately, neither of the other minibosses really fit with Tess’s kit. There was one that was magic based that Tess noted as potentially containing some upgrades for Isabella, as well as a sort of…knight that mostly had Attributes dealing with weapons.

Aside from those, there were rooms that were filled to the brim with dangerous traps that required slow, careful progress to make sure each and every little trap was found and defused. Tess and the others set off a trap on more than one occasion, and the results were generally less than pleasant, ranging from simply spewing noxious gas to just summoning a miniboss in the room.

That trap had been the worst by far; it had contained a false trigger that had tricked Tess into thinking it was disarmed when it wasn’t, then summoned that magic focused miniboss. The trio then had to fight the miniboss in a room that had only been half-cleared of traps, greatly limiting their movement.

And, finally, there were rooms that were clearly meant to be puzzles of some sort. By and large, those posed obstacles that weren’t really threatening to a party as small and versatile as Tess’s. Some rooms had large gaps that practically required flight to get across, others had a smattering of monsters that respawned the moment anyone left the room while most of the room was supposedly rigged to erupt in deadly spikes if too many people were on it, and others still required things like briefly splitting the party and having the members solve individual challenges.

The flight rooms were no issue, as both Tess and Maven were capable of flight, and Ellie could ferry herself across with the Swords of Death. They didn’t even realize the respawning monster room was a puzzle until they were finished with it; only then did the gods inform them about the unnoticeable trap in the floor and the nature of the monster respawns. It was apparently supposed to challenge people to create groups small enough to safely traverse the room while also remaining large enough and balanced enough to deal with the threat of the monsters.

And, while the individual challenges were annoying, they were designed for people with a much lower level than that of Tess’s party, so they were able to clear them with only a little forethought. The only puzzle room that actually gave them any trouble was one which required a series of buttons to be pressed in the proper order within a very small period of time. The buttons were too spread apart for their small group to reach all of the required ones within the time limit, so they had to get creative with their positioning, allowing each of the three to run to a different button after they had pressed their first.

Even with Silky and Isabella being able to press two of the buttons, they were still just slightly too slow, and had to rely a combination of Tess’s short-range teleportation and a thrown stone to get the final button pressed in time.

But all in all, they made progress pretty smoothly as long as they avoided most of the rooms that simply contained huge numbers of monsters. They encountered a few more teleporters, and with each there was a slight but noticeable bump in the difficulty of the dungeon. It began with there being ever so slightly more monsters in puzzle rooms, the traps becoming just that bit harder to disarm, minibosses being accompanied by regular monsters, but eventually culminated in things such as the miniboss summoning trap and there being two minibosses in a singular room.

Still, they were able to handle that with relative ease, and soon found themselves in front of what could only be the boss room. While there wasn’t a door or anything, a multitude of paths converged into a single area containing a teleporter and a singular tunnel leading downwards, conspicuously clean of all moss.

“How are you two doing?” Ellie asked. “Do we need to go back and take a break before we tackle the boss?”

Tess took a moment to check her HP, Mana, and Stamina, then shook her head. “I’m probably fine to go in as is, but I would also benefit from a break.” She said. “Not like…leaving the dungeon break, but like…five or ten minutes to sit and wait for things to recover.”

“I have some potions that could help with that.” Maven offered. “We could all take some and wait.”

“Let’s do that, then.” Ellie said. “You two wanna wait here or teleport to the outside and wait there?”

“I thought we decided it was too risky to be outside the dungeon?” Tess asked.

“Oh, no, sorry. I mean the outside that’s in the dungeon, the like…scrubby area.” Ellie clarified.

“I think I like it more in here.” Tess said. “We haven’t seen any monsters wandering the tunnels yet, and I think the inside of the cave is nicer than outside. At least the moss doesn’t have goatheads, you know?”

“Goat heads?” Maven asked, frowning.

“Those little pokey things that get in your shoes.” Ellie explained.

“Oh, those. Why are they called goatheads?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s probably because they look kinda like a goat’s head?” Ellie replied. “That’s just what people call them. That or like…stickers or something. Do they not have those in Paumen?”

“If we do, they are not found near the capital.” Maven said.

“Lucky.” Ellie grumbled. “They’re everywhere near where we live, and they’re a huge pain.”

“I would imagine so.” Maven replied, smiling slightly as she reached into her bag. “What kind of potions are you two in need of?”

“Mana and Stamina, please.” Ellie said. “Nothing terribly strong, just enough for like…a thousand points.”

“I only need a couple hundred points in Stamina.” Tess said. “The weakest you have will probably be plenty.”

Maven nodded, pulling out a few vials from her bag. “Here you are.” She said, handing one to Tess and two to Ellie. “The potion I gave you is probably a bit overkill for your needs, but it’s the weakest I have.” She told Tess, taking out another vial for herself. “These should bring us up to fighting strength in five minutes.”

“Thanks a bunch.” Tess said, then turned her attention over to Silky and Isabella. “How are you two doing?” She asked, placing Silky upon her palm.

Right as rain! Silky said proudly, giving a salute. Let me at ‘em!

“I am fine as well.” Isabella intoned, peeking her head out of Tess. “I am ready for action.”

“These two are fine.” Tess told the others. “So just let me know when you two are ready, I guess.”

“What kind of boss do you think it’s going to be?” Ellie asked. “I mean…those minibosses we killed were relatively tough for how much lower level they were, so the boss has got to be too, right?”

“They’re all around level twenty-five, and their stats are pretty comparable to bosses of the same level.” Tess said idly. “I’d imagine that the actual boss is going to be roughly equivalent to the boss of like…a normal level thirty-five dungeon.”

“If it’s like raid bosses in video games, it’ll probably have a ton of HP and a lot of area attacks.” Ellie mused. “Since it is supposed to threaten multiple parties at once.”

“Can you really compare video games with real life like that, though?” Maven asked. “It seems…ill-advised to go in with assumptions based on that.”

Tess and Ellie shared a look. “You’re probably right, but it’s not as bad an idea as you’re thinking.” Tess said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the gods take some ideas from mortals when it comes to designing things.”

“Are the gods giving insight on the boss?” Maven asked curiously. “You’ve been spaced out for a while.”

Tess paused, pondering how best to phrase what she was going to say. Fortunately, she didn’t have to think for long, since Ellie spoke up first. “Sorta. I’m right about the video game thing, so I’m pretty sure we can expect lots of HP and area attacks.”

The three of them continued discussing until their resources were, eventually, recharged, at which point they began walking down the suspiciously clean slope. After a long descent, the tunnel evened out, turning into a large, circular room, completely clear of moss.

Standing in the center of the room was a gaunt humanoid figure that had to be over ten feet tall. It was so skinny Tess could see what looked like each and every one of its bones, and its mouth was already drooling as it stared at the mouth of the tunnel. Even so, it didn’t move at all, just…sat there and watched them intently.

“Ready?” Ellie whispered.

“As I’ll ever be.” Tess said.

“Please, go ahead.” Maven said. “We will play support, as always.”

Ellie nodded, raising her shield before dashing into the room. The moment she did, the boss sprung into action, running towards her with its long, spindly fingers outstretched. Tess ran in behind Ellie, activating her Skills and preparing her strike.

As she did, she was met with a biting chill and gnawing hunger, one that had to be just in her head. Hunger aside, both her armor and Phoenix Fire should have kept her perfectly safe from any normal chill. She ignored the chill, and ran up to deliver her strike when, to her shock, the boss swatted a lightning-quick hand at her.

She teleported forward and landed her strike anyway, but that radically shifted her perception of this boss. It wasn’t like other monsters she had fought; even though it already had a target, and Tess had yet to attack it, it was still capable of attempting to hurt her. Target of Affection wasn’t going to prevent it from hurting her, so she’d have to be more careful.

After a moment her attack landed, and the creature reeled backwards in pain before turning its baleful eyes upon Tess.

“Oh no you don’t!” Ellie yelled, barreling into the thing and slicing at it with her swords. “You fight me!”

It threw back its head and howled, and there was a sudden wind, bringing with it a deep chill, one that sapped the strength from Tess’s bones and just made her want to sit down and sleep. The hunger intensified as well, to the point where it felt as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

And then Maven’s fireball hit it directly in the mouth, cutting it off mid-howl. And, suddenly, the cold and hunger were just that little bit better. Furthermore, the flames from the fireball were far more effective than they would normally be, most of the creature’s upper torso erupting into flames that lingered for just a bit too long.

“That wasn’t me, I think it’s weak to fire!” Maven shouted.

Ellie grunted, swinging her sword again, and then…it just died. “Oh.” She said. “It was under twenty five percent HP, I guess.”

“A little anticlimactic, but whatever, I guess.” Tess said. “Now…where’s the Rewards Crystal?”

“Probably down that hallway.” Maven said, motioning down a tunnel that Tess could have sworn wasn’t there before. And, sure enough, they found a Rewards Crystal just sort of…sitting there at the end. It was odd, seeing one outside of the rooms they came in in every other dungeon, but a touch revealed that it was, indeed, an authentic Rewards Crystal.

 Tess blinked, surprised that she hadn’t gotten this sooner. It seemed like a rather important addition to her abilities, effectively doubling any damage she would deal.

“Anything good?” Ellie asked.

“Really good.” Tess confirmed. “I need to start hasting myself now to take advantage of it, so that’s probably gonna be a bit of a Mana drain, but it’s workable.”

“Well, I got access to more magic, so that’s always nice.” Ellie said.

There was a long silence as Tess and Ellie waited for Maven to speak up, but she didn’t. Tess turned back to talk to her, but…she was gone.

“Oh.” Ellie said. “Do you think Dungeons…”

“Probably.” Tess replied, sitting down. “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to wait.”

Ellie sighed. “I suppose so.”