Mantle of the Gods

Twenty three rooms.

That was the fastest route to the boss room.

The monsters themselves weren’t very difficult to defeat. Fray and I were trading off killing them, while Jovena did nothing really to contribute. I’d thought about saying something, but considering the reprimand she’d gotten yesterday, I didn’t want to have her have to go through a second round of that.

Ren had to recast Light every time we went through a portal, which had earned her the spot right after the Tank. For someone with less mana than myself, I could tell that it was wearing on her and if we needed spells from her later, she was going to be limited.

“Should we take a break?” I pointed at the door to the bossroom, “Catch our breath before heading in?”

“Good idea.” Gesai started to sit down, but as soon as she touched the spongy floor, she stood back up.

Ren crouched so she was sitting on the back of her feet while keeping the rest of her body off of the ground. She took a blue bottle out of her CB and started drinking it.

“What’s that?” I pointed at the drink.

The blonde finished it, “Mana potion. I thought I’d need to be topped off before we go in.”

“Gotcha.” One of the downsides of working with Farmers was that I hadn’t seen a lot of the staples of most Adventuring teams. I probably needed to look into buying some of those.

“What can we expect from the boss?” I turned my attention to our teacher.

The red-haired woman looked at her CB. “It's a quadruped, so it'll be faster than the ones you've been fighting.” Her lips moved as she kept reading, “ Horns and claws, so you need to watch out for those. And the charge move is…” She scrolled down, “A charge. Mitchel, you need to keep it taunted and the rest of you shouldn't have much of a problem chipping away at it. Fray, the crystal is in its head, so if you can take off its neck, that'll end the fight. Atlas, this says its skull is reinforced, so don't try to get at it that way. Focus on the legs and try to hobble one of them. Ren, keep Fray and Mitchel buffed and if you want to, focus on one of the back legs. Jovena, it looks like it's immune to poison, but Paralyze and Weaken will help them out a lot.” She looked at us, “Any questions?”

When no one spoke, she tossed me the eye she would use to watch us.

“I'm going to go in and beat this thing first, so once you finish we can all go through to the second floor, then head back to camp.” She pointed at the artifact in my hand, “You can watch me with that thing.”

The other four crowded around me as our teacher walked into the boss room. At first we couldn’t see anything, then the room lit up as flames crawled up her sword. It wasn’t as much light as Ren’s spell, but it was enough to get the job done.

A monster the size of a bear rose up out of the ground and fixed its glowing purple eyes on the red-haired intruder. It let out a roar as it lumbered towards her.

Gesai sidestepped it and cut a small gash down the side of the horned monster’s flank. She took a few steps back to put distance in between herself and the monster.

“What’s she doing?” Fray’s voice quivered. “Why hasn’t she beaten it yet?”

The monster closed in again and this time, she blocked the charge with the flat of her sword. She pushed the monster back, which caused it to roll away. For us, these things were something we would have trouble soloing, but for her, they were a lot weaker than the things that she should be fighting at her level.

“She’s showing us what it’s like.” I pointed at the howling monster, “See? Now it’s charging.”

In just a few seconds, the purple and black furred monster leapt through the air at her. Gesai sidestepped it and took its head off in one swing. The monster went up in smoke before it hit the ground. She reached down and picked up the crystal and the loot, then walked back out to our floor.

“That’s the gist of it.” She held out a purple bladed sword and laughed, “Cursed Blade of Speed.” She turned to Fray. “It starts stacking a curse and ups your speed by one.” She offered it to the other woman, “Do you want it?”

Fray looked at the katana at her side, then back at the offered weapon. “That’s a really nice bonus, but I like this type of weapon better.”

“You can use it to upgrade it then.” Gesai held the sword out to get it closer to the other woman. It almost felt like she was trying to give her a peace offering. “I’m sure they’ve got a blacksmith around here somewhere.”

Fray took the purple blade, “How?”

“Put it in your CB for now.” Gesai motioned at the door behind her. “We still need all of you to beat this so that I can run the next group down here.” She kept her focus on Fray, “Nothing flashy. Just get in there and clean it up. Do your job and stay in your zone and it’ll be easy.” The teacher looked at the rest of us, “This is not an evaluation. This is an assignment, so do your jobs and don’t show off.” She ended her gaze on me, “And don’t hold back.”

I nodded, though I knew that even if I was doing what she considered letting loose, I was still going to be holding back. Jovena was here and she wasn’t going to be sticking around, so I had to maintain my cover as just a Caster.

“Will do.” I smiled and looked at the rest of my team, “Let’s go!”