NOVEL FROG 29 - Dungeon Boss
Chapter 29
Dungeon Boss
I retreat back into tunnel I came from and sit down to rest. I want to make sure that I am at my best before tackling this final monster. Or at least I think it is the dungeon boss. I start reviewing my plan. Stand in opening to the cavern, launch two ice spikes, see how the drake reacts. If the drake stays in place to defend the door, then I will just keep throwing ice spikes at it until it dies. If it charges me than I will retreat while still shooting spells at it. I should place some landmines in front of me just in case it does chase after me. That should slow it down and allow me a little more distance and time to shoot spells at it.
I like that idea so I pick up ten pebbles and cast landmine on them for 3 hours and set them to the side. I waited an hour and then cast landmine on another set of 10 pebbles for 2 hours and set them to the other side. After another hour of rest, I felt ready. I picked up a set of landmine pebbles with each hand and traveled back towards the opening of the drake cavern. I slowed down and snuck up to the entrance of the cavern as quietly as possible and peered in. Good, the drake had not moved at all. I threw out the first batch of pebbles in a fan shaped pattern about 10 meters out. The second batch in the same manner, just 5 meters out.
The drake had obviously heard the clatter of the stones striking each other as I saw its head pop up and turn toward the entrance I was at. Too late buddy I am ready. I create an ice spike in each hand and start my barrage. The first two spikes hit and cause damage, making the drake roar in either pain or fury. It still has not moved. I launch another round of spikes. Two more hits and more roaring. Still no reaction other than shifting in place. I guess it is tied to the area. I conjure up another two spikes but right before I am about to throw them the drake breathes fire in my direction. Wow, that is coming fast, it must be using its boost ability. I just randomly toss out the ice spikes I had ready and then turn around and run.
I think I finally ticked it off enough that it is ignoring its duty to defend the door. I don’t know whether to be proud of my accomplishment or horrified that I have a mini dragon chasing me. I manage about 20 meters of running when I hear the whistle of the landmine pebbles accelerating and then another scream of pain from the Fire Drake. I look over my shoulder and see the fire drake skid and crash into the wall and slump down. Did I kill it? Inspect.
Fire Drake (Unconscious) Level: 120 Magic: Fire Breath/Boost
It knocked itself unconscious? I stop my flight and turn around. I cannot give up this chance. I rush back towards the drake before it regains consciousness. I reach the fire drake and I have to make a quick decision. What is going to be the most efficient way of ending this fight. I cautiously reach out and touch its neck. The scales look smaller and less hard. If I put my full strength behind it, I might be able to cut its throat. If I can’t though I would be in a bad position. The drake is starting to twitch. It looks like it is about wake up. I decide the most vulnerable thing is its eyes. I quickly climb up onto its neck and then with as much force as possible plunge both my arm scythes into the drake’s eyes.
My scythes plunge into its eyes about 10 centimeters and then grind on the bone of the eye sockets. Well I succeeded in both blinding the drake and rousing it from unconsciousness. It is thrashing about in pain, but that is why I climbed onto its neck to hold it down and stay out of the way of its teeth and claws. I withdraw my scythes from the eyes and try to stab its throat. My scythes dig in but do not go very deep. I am glad I decided to go with the eyes earlier. I have one more idea. I call up an ice orb in each hand and when it open its mouth to roar again I shove both orbs into its mouth and release them. This causes the Fire Drake to go into death spasms which throw me off the back of its neck and I crash hard into the ceiling, and then hit the floor.
That hurt, a lot. However, it seems that it was effective. After a few more violent spasms the fire drake stops moving. Best to be careful. Inspect.
Carcass of Fire Drake Level: 120 Magic: Fire Breath/Boost
Yay, I actually won. Even sarcasm hurts right now. I cast light heal and regeneration on myself and just chill. The battle only took like two minutes, but I am mentally exhausted and banged up from the last throw the fire drake gave me. It went better than I expected. What I did definitely would not have worked outside of a dungeon. The poor fire drake seemed tied to that door until it finally went into a frenzy and charged. I did more than half my damage to it before it even moved. Note to self, better escape plans when forming attack strategies would probably equal less pain for me. Always try and leave a way out.
After a few light heals, one regeneration, and about an hour and a half of rest I feel ready to see what is behind the door that the Fire Drake was guarding. First though I cut into the fire drake and retrieve its fire core. It seems larger or of a better quality than the fire cores I was retrieving from the salamanders and Fire Bats. I wonder if it was beyond level 100. Maybe higher levels give better quality cores. I am going to have to figure that out before I try and sell them. I might get different prices for different levels of cores. I also cut up and claim as much of the fire drake carcass as possible.
This thing is a little big to go into my inventory. I mean I think I could fit the whole thing, but it would end up eating just about every one of my last spaces in there leaving no room for anything else. So I gut it, and get rid of the offal which is about ¼ to 1/3 of the weight, just keeping the liver and the heart as I remember in stories that they might be valuable and then store the rest. That leaves me with 15 spaces left which would equate to, well I am not sure. Let’s see my strength was at 60 last time I checked and I get 50kg every 5 strength so each slot can hold 600kg. Is that right? I should have just stored the whole carcass then. Ok no more worries about storage until I cannot hold anything else. Then I can make decisions if I need to get rid of anything.
I approach the door and take a good look at it. It is about 3 meters high and about 4 meters across, split down the middle to make it a double door. It looks to be made of wood with iron bands reinforcing it across several areas. It definitely looks intimidating. A right proper dungeon door. I hope it has some awesome reward behind it. Just to be careful I call up a single Ice Spike in my right hand and try and push the door open with my left. It swings open surprisingly easy.
I peer inside and see nothing ominous so I toss the spike behind me and fully open the door. Inside I see three treasure chests and a platform with runes inscribed on it. Nothing else seems to be in room. Ok, going out on a limb here, but the treasure chests are probably the reward for conquering the dungeon and the platform is a shortcut back to the surface. I decide to check out the treasure chests first for two reasons. First is that they are TREASURE CHESTS. Come on who has never wanted to find actual treasure in a real treasure chest. Second, I do not know if the platform is automatic. It would be terrible if I stepped on it and was transported away before I got my reward.
I walk over to the treasure chests and am surprised when words appear in the air above them when I get within 2 meters.
“Dungeon Cleared, 1 chest rewarded. First time cleared, 1 chest rewarded. Solo clear, 1 chest rewarded. Please choose you chests.”
Interesting, it looks like normally I would only get a single chest reward if I conquered this with a dungeon group. Then we would all have to split the reward. I wonder if that means most people work alone, or if dungeon groups are still a thing. I guess I will find out sooner or later. Each chest is labeled. The first chest has wealth written on it in gold letters. The second has strength in red letters, while the final chest has knowledge written on it in white letters. So I would normally have to choose between wealth, strength, or knowledge. Luckily I have satisfied the requirements to have all three so I will know what each of those means. I open one chest after another and take a look inside.
Inside the wealth chest are several coins and a few gems. Nothing really surprising, I quickly pick them up and store them in my inventory. The strength chest has a hammer in it that has glowing script that seems to move all along the shaft and metal head of the hammer. Ok, this is probably a magic weapon. I giggle in joy just a little bit. I have not only conquered a dungeon and gotten treasure from a chest, but I now have a magic weapon. I mean I already had the mace of force, but this actually looks like a magic weapon straight from a story book. I quickly use Inspect.
Hammer of Smiting Magic Weapon
Inspect Hammer of Smiting.
Hammer of Smiting: This hammer does an extra 50% damage to all fire based creatures.
Alright that sort of makes sense. The reward for finishing a fire based dungeon is a weapon that helps against fire creatures. Still this is awesome. I will call your Hammy and you will be my new best friend. Hmm, maybe I do need to get to a town soon and have interactions with real people if I am naming and caressing weapons. Nope, a hammer like this would never betray me so it is worthy of being my new best friend. Finally, I take a look into the last chest. Books, it holds three books. What kind of award is books? Don’t get me wrong, I love reading. In fact, I have been missing having something to read before going to sleep at night a lot. However, books don’t seem very dungeon rewardish.
I take the books out of the chest and read the titles of each. The first is called “Five Common Fire Spells”, the next is titled “Three Advanced Fire Spells”, and the final book is titled “Profession Reset”. Ok, now I get it. This must be one of the ways that magic users who do not have the sorcerer profession can get new spells. Over time the collections must grow and be handed down to new students or apprentices. I wonder if the spells always stay the same or if they change each time you select the knowledge chest in a dungeon? I guess since I am going to be using this dungeon to train I will find out.
I open the “Five Common Fire Spells” book and hear a voice in my head. “The book will be consumed after use. Your primary profession of Sorcerer means that any spell learned and not created will operate at only 50% efficiency. Do you wish to learn the spells? Y/N.” I quickly think NO in my head. What a waste. I guess I can just sell it when I reach a town. The horrible part is I still don’t know what the spells were. I was at least going to use it to compare to mine, but I don’t want to waste it like that. I guess I can just quiz somebody eventually. The last book “Profession Reset” seems pretty obvious. If I use it, I will probably have the choice of changing my profession. My only question is can I use it to switch to any profession or does it have some sort of fire based professions I would have to choose from.
I like being a Sorcerer, I am not going to risk losing it and receiving something worse in trade. I will save this one also and see if there is a market for these types of books in whatever town I eventually end up in. Well enough is enough, time to see what the platform does.