Dungeon Noble - Squire

The floor had only three clearings, but each one held a Tendrae and roughly nine Rootlings. Not that big of a step up in difficulty as these things went, but enough to show what was coming.

After all, it was a big move to go from a single Enhanced on the Guardian floor to three Enhanced on the first floor of that tier.

When they continued on to the seventh floor, they found the format of the floor differed from the others. Rather than individual clearings, there was what seemed like a single long path that went all the way to the exit.

They couldn’t actually see the exit from here, but there was no sign of the boundary trees doing anything but continuing in a straight line.

Despite all that, the path ahead was filled with young saplings, much like they’d seen when they first encountered the Oaken.

“Does this remind you of the fire Dungeon?” Alan asked, leaning over to Jake with a worried expression. “The last floor we got to, I mean.”

Jake frowned and looked at the seemingly endless number of saplings ahead of them once more. “Yeah, a little. That one was a long, straight path as well.”

“You’ll quickly learn that there are some commonalities between Dungeons,” Gargan said, stepping over next to Alan as he did. “While they can differ dramatically in the monsters which inhabit them, their structure and format is less variable.”

“So, you’ve seen a floor like this before?” Jake asked, gesturing to what lay ahead of them.

“Yes, others like this seem to focus on large numbers of weaker monsters.”

“Huh, that works with what we saw before. Anything else we should know?”

“You’ve already picked up on how open spaces like clearings work. There isn’t too much more than that at our tier. Older classers I’ve spoken to say that higher tiers bring more complexity, though.”

Jake nodded, wondering if the third tier would bring any big changes. Then again, he didn’t know the full extent of what this tier did yet.

“Alright, so based on what we see here, this is going to have a lot of Beast strength monsters,” Jake said, reasoning it out in his head as the others gathered around him. “All these saplings make me think we’re dealing with Oaken. Alan, can you try to spot a few?”

The Scholar nodded and turned to survey the path ahead, shaking his head after a few moments. “If there are any, they’re too far back or too well hidden for me to pick them out.”

“Well, let’s work on the assumption that they’re what we’re dealing with. Any thoughts on how to tackle this?”

“Well, we need to be careful with fire, as that seems to cause them all to respond,” Alan said, giving Gargan an apologetic look.

Gargan waved away Alan’s apology and simply nodded. “Alan’s right, we should try to fight them with less inciting weaponry. I will use my backup wand instead.”

“Okay, that sounds like a plan to me. Let’s push in slowly and see what we can figure out.”

“Wait, what about your duck?” Aspen asked, nodding to Moby. “Can he help at all?”

“Well, he can distract and harass any monsters we fight. He could also fly ahead, but that doesn’t feel that useful when we have Alan with us,” Jake said, rubbing the back of his neck as he considered how else Moby could help them.

When Jake had been delving alone, having that extra pair of eyes had been useful. Now, though, it felt redundant. It also didn’t help that the monsters here were quite good at hiding.

“Can you communicate clearly through your bond?” Gargan asked, explaining a little more when he saw Jake’s confused expression. “I met another classer with a familiar like this and he said they could communicate via their bond.”

“Oh.” Jake had tried to do something like that at first, but he hadn’t tried again since he increased the rank of the Boon.

Focusing inwards to where the Boon lay, as he would when summoning or dismissing Moby, Jake found that when he focused on it, he could feel a way to link them while Moby was active.

Shrugging mentally, Jake did just that.

The duck in question was sitting on the grass a few feet away, but quickly rose as Jake linked them with a questioning quack.

Jake could sense Moby’s anticipation of the coming fight, but could also feel the control that this link gave.

“Jake?” Alan’s voice brought him back to the group as he realised he’d been lost in examining this new link with Moby.

“Sorry, just learning how this all works. We can communicate, but I don’t think it’s clear enough for accurate scouting.”

“Perhaps he should stick to harassing them for now, then?” Aspen chipped in, gesturing up above the saplings. “Plenty of room for him up there and no flying monsters so far.”

“Yeah, agreed,” Jake said, pushing his intent through the link to Moby, who took off and circled above them. “Well, that was much easier.”

Nepthys gave Jake a smug look before turning serious as she gestured to the wooded path. “We should get started. We don’t know how long this will take and I really don’t want to rush.”

The others nodded and quickly moved into position, but it took Jake a moment to remember what she was talking about.

He’d felt the time pressure from the Dungeon in a couple of the Challenges they’d done, but never as part of a normal delve. It wasn’t something he’d shared, but he could only assume it was another benefit of his Patron.

So far, the biggest advantage from it had been that he could take his time when delving alone. It wasn’t that big of a deal now, but in the future, he was certain it would be.

For a moment, Jake tried to imagine how he would complete a tier two Dungeon on his own. Just how strong would he have to be?

Fighting a Tendrae and some Rootlings wasn’t beyond him, it would be more tiring than dangerous, especially with his Boons.

“Ready, Jake?” Alan asked softly and Jake shook himself before nodding.

“Yeah, let’s get moving.”

With the path being as wide as it was, Alan, Aspen and Jake all moved together, with Nepthys and Gargan a half-dozen steps behind them.

If something got too close, Jake and Aspen would come together and block whatever it was from getting the Scholar. A simple tactic, but hopefully they didn’t need anything more complicated.

“Oaken, up ahead,” Alan called out after almost a minute of walking. He stopped as he made the call, lifting his bow slightly but not drawing it. “Shall I take a shot?”

“Go for it,” Jake said, lifting his wand to point in the direction that Alan was aiming. “Time to see how they react.”

Alan’s bow thrummed as a grey-tipped arrow flashed out, striking what Jake had thought was just another sapling.

Instead, there was a familiar creaking sound of pain and anger as a section of bark was caved in, revealing a hollow interior.

The Oaken turned and began to stomp towards them, leaves fluttering from it as it tore through some of the new growth that had been around it.

Jake aimed for the hole that Alan had put in the creature, sending a small volley of thorns into it at the same time as Gargan struck it with a cluster of icicles.

Both attacks dug into the bark of the Oaken, piercing it in several places and widening the hole that Alan made.

Jake felt a pulse of warning across his link with Moby right as Alan put a second arrow through the core of the Oaken and finished it off.

Looking around, Jake saw that their fight had awoken three more of the Oaken, and they were slowly making their way over.

“Seems fighting still draws them, just not as much as fire does,” Jake said, pointing out the other monsters before holstering his wand.

The thorns were good, but they could only just penetrate the bark of the Oaken, which meant they couldn’t hit the core within it.

No, with several of them attacking at once, Jake was going to have to get a bit more personal with his opponents.

Alan and Gargan were already swapping to the closest of the other Oaken, so Jake and Aspen split up to deal with the other two.

Oaken were quite tough for a Beast strength monster, and they were pretty strong as well, but they were so very slow.

It was easy for Jake to bait the one he approached into swinging at him, letting him dodge aside and then strike right at its core while it recovered.

Infusing his blade let Jake carve right through the bark like it wasn’t there and he cleaved the Oaken’s core apart, sending the monster falling heavily to the ground.

Aspen had already dealt with his chosen target as well, but more Oaken were lumbering out from further down the path. It looked like this was going to be one long running battle.

-**-

The five of them fell into a routine as they steadily slaughtered the Oaken, advancing at a slow but steady pace through the woodland path.

Gargan or Alan would engage the furthest Oaken in each group, while the three melee fighters cycled through who dealt with the rest.

By taking it in turns, they were doing their best to keep themselves topped up with Wyrd and stop anyone getting too tired.

Still, Jake was sure they had to have killed at least fifty Oaken by this point. The growing mound of Wyrdgeld in his pouch told him that much.

“Shit!” Aspen shouted from where he was just dealing with his current target. “Got a larger group!”

Sure enough, Jake could see a dozen Oaken were moving their way in a loose cluster. “Looks like we’re all chipping in for this one.”

Rolling his shoulders, Jake moved forward to join Aspen, who was hanging back to wait for him and Nepthys.

“I’ll take the right, Aspen goes straight and Nepthys goes left?”

“Works for me,” Aspen said, flashing Jake a grin before twirling his spear. “It’ll be nice to mix things up.”