[D'sP] Failure And Fighting - Chapter 509 (Patreon)

Doyle settles and pulls back to his core room. Oh, sure, this wasn’t the first time he had failed at something. However, until now? Any of his big things he has tried to do with his dungeon had worked in some manner. Even his most recent thing, adjusting his status and how it displayed his database skill, had ended up in success.

Though that does give Doyle an idea. Technically, he had managed to do something before the Path showed up, but maybe what he had done so far with this would count? So he pulls up his currently available Paths.

{

Available Classes: Awakened Dungeon Core III 10/100, Awakened Spatial Dungeon core I 0/1, Dungeon Core of Awakened Intent I 0/1

Available: Five Cornered Square Initiate 0/100, Raising The Floor 0/100, Into The Infinite 0/60, Floors Within Floors 0/10, PsiBoon I 0/200, Deep Rules 0/500, Time Will Wait 0/500, Voidborn Expansionist 0/330, Mural Mayhem 0/20, Swarm Tactics 0/10, Golem Crafter 0/60, Expedition Patron 0/25, Kobold Salvaging 0/40, Quests At A Distance 0/50, Scrapyard 0/50, Quest Taker 0/50, Proto-Array Maker 0/10, Proto-Formation Maker 0/10, Rune Maker 0/50, Magitech Artificer 0/30, Magitech Designer 0/50, Rune Progenitor 0/100, Earth Rune Maker 0/10

}

Doyle glowers, ‘Hey Ally, I’ve been working on the elemental attunement thing for a while. Why don’t I have a path for it? Like, I gained a dang path for the elemental runes I used on the stone, but not attuning Mana to Earth.’

Ally looks over at the Paths screen. ‘Hmm. I don’t rightly know? Like, regular sapients don’t get something like that. Instead, using a skill that on your home planet would likely be called “Feng Shui” to cause the energy to naturally flow in a manner that encourages attunement.

‘And I am sure that has more than enough paths related to it. But direct attunement? Not really in the realm of mortals, which, despite everything, you technically still qualify as. If anything, you’d be more of a Titan though, so the line is quite blurry for dungeon cores. But yeah, that should work, but since it isn’t, I can’t really help you fix it.

‘Maybe you do need a similar skill? Though as the dungeon is your body? Maybe you instead need one of the Cultivation style skills, in particular body Cultivation. A shame that we don’t really have anyone who follows the path. Least not that I know of.’

Doyle, ‘SIGH That sucks. I guess I should refocus on other methods for evolving the bear. Least until we can figure something else out with this elemental attunement thing.’

Ally shrugs, ‘It wasn’t ever going to be easy. There’s a reason dungeons tend to focus on one line of monsters. Once you figure out evolving goblins, it is a lot easier to keep evolving them as compared to going off and then trying to evolve lizards.’

Doyle doesn’t really have much to say to that and focuses on making the bear more “earthy”.

While this is happening, time passes and the town outside keeps growing, if not in size, then at least in power. So soon enough, Ace gives the order and the core begins to push again. They had let off actively trying to delve deeper for a while to allow those newly added to the town’s core a chance to, maybe not catch up in power, but at least catch up in teamwork.

And so it is that we find Jim and his team delving deep. They had snuck through the traps and kobolds of 17, survived the flash floods of 18, and were now exploring the plateau of 19.

Jim shades his eyes as the wind whips past him.

He hits the ground a bit later after gravity finally brings him back down from his jump. He sighs, “Just an enormous field of grass.”

Jay shrugs, “With a ton of unknown dangers.”

Kellinger pulls at his monk’s robe, before sighing, “I need a new robe. This one isn’t fitting as well as it used to.”

Jeremy playfully hits Kellinger’s shoulder, “Just get a seamstress to modify it. Though speaking of unknown dangers, there are some known dangers as well. Those fancy axebeaks don’t look too friendly.”

Jim nods, “I’m considering sniping them. At worst, it might be a decent way of drawing aggro.”

Kelly shakes her head, “I can see a lot that can go wrong with that. Though starting with the closest one shouldn’t cause too much trouble.”

Tess nods, “Besides, we’re right at the entrance still. If things get bad, we can leave. Though definitely use an arrow for this. A spell might draw more attention than we bargained for.”

Kellinger ignores them and complains at Jeremy, “You think I haven’t tried? There isn’t any extra material to let out. Downside of having it so closely tailored in the first place. I wish I would get a dungeon drop to replace it.”

Jim lowers his bow and looks over, “You do realize we’re getting close to making masterworks of our own?”

Kellinger shrugs, “We’re in the third year. Given the fact that we have a hundred total before our isolation is up? Seems a bit early for that.”

Kelly shakes her head, “Masterwork is the beginning of the journey. Both in natural quality and magical quality.”

Kellinger rolls his eyes, “Masterwork is an item as close to perfect as physically possible. How can it be the beginning?”

Kelly raises an eyebrow, “I think you might need to leave the wizard’s tower a bit more often. I would have thought being in one of our places of learning, you’d have kept up with our knowledge, but clearly not.”

Kellinger shrugs, “I’m working on my spells. So few people seem interested in non-standard crowd control that I’m practically by myself. Everyone wants to cast Fire Ribbon or Grasping Roots. They ignore my much-perfected Grease spell and so on.”

Kelly, “More the fools them, but still. I would expect that, given the dungeon loot counts as Masterwork, you’d have realized a key fact. It represents being perfect at what it is.”

Jeremy nods, “Because let me tell you, the occasional throwing dagger that shows up is anything but ‘near perfect’. You can still improve the design on something, especially to customize it for a specific person. A perfect sword for someone five foot nothing isn’t going to work for some six foot six.’

Of course, this isn’t how it actually works and down in the core room Ally is giggling to herself. After all, dungeon loot is simply considered masterwork for the purposes of enchanting. Not because of the actual quality. Though admittedly, they are not wrong about how a masterwork item might not be perfect for a specific person, no matter how well-made it is.

Jay snorts, “Even if it isn’t Masterwork, what does it matter? We still haven’t figured out reliable enchanting.”

Kelly, “We’re close though! Now that those using rarer weapons have basically all gotten a dungeon drop weapon, any further drops of those kinds are up for grabs. It is quite hard to learn an entirely new profession with nothing to work on. You don’t become a good smith if you don’t have any metal and an author isn’t doing much without something to write on.”

Tess, “But they can learn and plan. Though, yeah, I’d still suck at healing if there wasn’t a never-ending flood of idiots thinking they’re hot stuff, only to get injured almost immediately. Fools are such a steady supply of practice material.” And she shakes her head.

Jim nods, “It has been a boon in training healers. It was touch and go there for a while, but now we have enough healers that one in five teams go into the dungeon with one. I’d prefer every team to enter with at least someone capable of minor healing spells and first aid, but even those low requirements only raises it to being one in four teams.

“But enough of that. Let’s see what we’re facing here.” And he raises his bow, sighting in on the closest Windcutter Axebeak.

This bow was actually something he crafted himself instead of loot. Not because the loot bows are low quality. Rather, he needed a stronger draw weight. And so this bow was formed, carefully crafted from wood and horn harvested as deep into the dungeon as possible. The wood from floor seventeen and the horn harvested from goats on sixteen. Though Jim is tempted to see what he could make out of a wooden goat’s horns.

Then the moment comes and his mind snaps back into focus. The closest visible axebeak had just lowered its head below the grass and at any moment it would rise up again. After watching for a while, Jim knew that the bird would pause and look around. All he needed to do was wait and hope it faced away from them.

The Windcutter Axebeak’s head rose out of the tall grass and turned.

Away!

Both the bird’s head and Jim’s arrow. One missing the surprise attack and the other silently slicing through the air.

However, these axebeaks aren’t “Windcutters” for nothing. It feels the air being parted by the arrow and squawks as it turns towards the group. A shame that isn’t quick enough to fully avoid the arrow. Though at least this will show the group what drawing aggro in this manner will do.

Mainly cause the bird charged at them along with the nearby Axebeak’s which includes a few that weren’t visible. Likely nesting or some such.

This was only a small group of six axebeaks and so not the end of the world, especially with one already injured. Tess and Jay stand in front of the others, ready to receive the charge.

Only for a razor fox to suddenly run out of the tall grass and slip between them, slashing at their legs with its wind-blade claws. Their armor partially blocked this and the fox wasn’t too focused on hurting them anyway, having been running from the birds. But this was enough to cause trouble as the axebeaks rushed out of the grass.

Jim steps forward and swings his bow around, smacking the razor fox away. Though at the same time this stops him from firing any more arrows, at least for the moment.

Jay, knowing that letting the fox through would cause trouble for those behind him, stepped up. Or rather, stepped forward as well. His poleaxe swings wide and low, kneecapping the front two birds. He takes a couple hits while overextended, but it delays the birds enough for the back row to handle the fox.

From there, the fight clears up fast. The axebeaks’ charge had been stopped, removing much of the danger. Still, Jay was injured, the name “axe”beak not coming out of nowhere.

Jim calls the party to regroup closer to the entrance gate. Once there, he asks the question, “Should we back out now? Our injuries have all healed, but we got shocked there.”

Tess shrugs, “You’re being a little too cautious. We’ve been to this floor before, but never far. I say we at least take a look around.”

Kellinger raises an eyebrow, “Not what I’d expect out of you.”

Tess, “We aren’t unprepared. Not like. Yeah.

“But we’re good. We’re ready for this. I think we can make it to the 20th floor. Or the very least, discover if there is one.”

Jay nods, “I say we go for it. And if there is? We pop our heads in, but dip after that.”

Jeremy, “And I can do a little more if things aren’t too wild.”

Jim looks around at the others, “And you’re all fine with this as well?”

They’re fine with it and so the group moves deeper, entering the tall grass. Exploring the area with Jim occasionally jumping to get a look at where they are.

Jeremy motions the others to stop, “Look, there’s some kind of ditch here. I have to assume there are more like it so we’ll have to be careful not to turn an ankle while fighting.”

And of course, there are traps for them to stumble across. Though even the others are spotting them. Partly because after floor 17, they’re all pretty skilled at spotting kobold traps. Though it certainly helps that unlike trees, grass isn’t sturdy enough to hide traps in, unless they’re free-standing. Which are easy enough to spot.

What isn’t easy to spot are the kobolds themselves. Groups of them can hide quite effectively within the tall grass. Because of this, the group does attempt a more “slash and burn” style of exploration. Which doesn’t not work.

A fire ribbon is more than capable of slicing through the tall grass. It simply doesn’t go as far as you’d expect and the party isn’t fireproof. So after the second time the grass around them almost catches on fire, they decide to give up on it.

Well, they do try a wind blade, but in a turn of events that was unexpected by everyone, Ally and Doyle included, it seems the tall grass is moderately resistant to air magic. No one is quite sure what is up, but Kelly’s best guess is that they adapted to the razor foxes.

There is also a brief attempt to use a water blade, but that also doesn’t work. At least, it doesn’t work well enough to use Mana on. As for an earth blade? They just didn’t have a spell like that. Summoning or creating rock doesn’t like making a blade, working best for rock bullets. So, while the stone razor they managed to cobble together works amazingly. It also costs more than the other three spells added together.

After that bit of nonsense, the group grudgingly returns to shouldering through the tall grass.

Jay sighs after another ambush, this time by a trio of razor foxes, which left him with basically papercuts all over his legs. “I know scythes aren’t a weapon weapon, but I kinda want one.”

Jeremy laughs, “Wouldn’t do us much good. Not much reach on a scythe. So sure, it will cut the grass just fine, but only the grass right next to us. Your poleaxe would probably work better!”

Jay gives his poleaxe a few test swings and yeah, it doesn’t do that bad of a job. However, Jeremy is quite right in the fact that the grass he can cut down with it isn’t worth the effort. After all, he isn’t here to harvest the grass.

Jay sighs at the failure, “These damn foxes are annoying me so much!”

Jim snorts, “At least you’re the tanky sort. Us back row types would be bleeding like stuck pigs.”

Tess shakes her head, “It would be more than that. The wind blades they’re firing off are strong enough as is. When those blades are still attached to their claws? They’ll leave deep gashes.”

Jim frowns, “Good to know. I guess we got lucky on that first fight.”

Tess shrugs, “I’d put you back together.”

Kelly shakes her head, “I’d rather not need to be put back together.”

Kellinger nods, “I’ll second that!”

Kinda Hard To Monitor - Chapter 508

An Upgrade Of Millimeters - Chapter 510