Dungeons and Dalliances Ch. 090-099

She wondered what that would be like. She was only interested in Natalie from a romantic perspective, but getting to team up on her with Sofia, Liz, or even Ana sounded appealing. She tried not to let those thoughts run too wild--and was admittedly somewhat surprised at how eager she was for it. She'd never considered herself a lustful woman, but recent events and her involvement with Natalie and her class had changed that--or woken something up in her.

"Well, whatever," Sofia said loudly. "We'll figure that out later. Can we please move on? There's still boss rooms to find, and we're not remotely re-stocked on gear."

Jordan considered pushing the point--how the challenges would be handled and distributed was relevant and worth talking about--but clearly Sofia needed a moment to think the subject over. A shared look with Natalie confirmed that.

"We'll handle it when we get to it," Natalie agreed.

Still halfway hiding behind Natalie, Liz nodded rapidly, her short hair bouncing.

"And your class better not have turned the bosses perverted too," Sofia said, with something approaching a growl. "I swear, gives good rewards or not, we do still need combat practice."

Jordan didn't think they were that lucky. The dungeon had far from morphed completely into a perverted landscape. They were in for plenty of regular challenges.

Just lots of bonus ones, too.

3.36 - Dryad

Despite the oddity of the earlier event, Natalie and her team fell back into their usual serious demeanor. It was hard not to, fighting against the vicious beasts of the dungeon. Her brain needed to focus entirely on each successive fight; there was no room to be embarrassed or incredulous over her circumstances. Footwork, illusions, and trading blows--that was all she could think about.

Having their gear stripped from them made progressing through the dungeon more of an ordeal than it otherwise would have been, but that said, far from an insurmountable one. As level ones who hadn't even had powerful gear to speak of, the effect was frustrating and certainly a detriment, but their recent advancements in technical prowess and teamwork meant monsters fell with relative ease.

It might even be true that they did better than they would have with their gear. They'd been greatly motivated by Elida's attack, and to the woman, they stubbornly risen up and refused to have their first dungeon run ruined. With razor focus and determination, they regained, piece by piece, various armor and accessories, slowly working their arsenal back up.

The items were unfortunately not as well-suited to them, since they'd spent the past week doing their best to gather ones that would be, but while the bonuses earned from gear were important, the difference between one piece and another weren't that significant. Their competence with their classes and weapons mattered more.

Natalie, of course, was the most exposed from the event--having armor to defend herself from attacking monsters was obviously important for the tank, even if the armor wasn't as high quality as it could be. Fortunately, the dungeon went easy on them, and she found a chainmail vest in the first hour. Not just that, but Liz's new powerful weapon meant her buffs and heals were stronger than ever.

Hours passed, dozens of monsters turned to smoke ribbons and monster cores, and they forged forward, emboldened by their picking-up speed. It was only a matter of time before they found a real challenge: a stone archway tucked between two towering trees. Natalie knew the entrance to a boss fight when she saw one.

The team discussed their options. They could mark the entrance and backtrack to it later, when they'd gathered more equipment and thus were better prepared, or they could tackle the elite beast now.

The original plan had been the former, but the dungeon had been generous in their first several hours of adventuring; they hadn't fully restocked their gear, but they'd gotten the basics, and Liz had her new wand to rely on. Not only that, but there was an argument for taking on the boss before they tired themselves out. Hours on hours of delving took obvious tolls on endurance, even resting between fights.

They came to a consensus--they would fight now. As much as because there were logical reasons to do so, Natalie could tell her teammates were antsy for a difficult fight. Even the more cautious members, like Ana and Jordan, seemed eager to test themselves against a real challenge.

So, rolling her hammer in her grip, Natalie passed through the stone archway and into the clearing.

She became doubly certain this would be a boss fight just from the space that opened up. A wide, circular arena sprawled out in front of her. Tall walls of thick, interwoven trees stuffed with vegetation blocked movement in and out. There were four square dirt patches in each of the cardinal directions, and Natalie knew it would have something to do with the fight, though not how, yet. Boss fights often came with environmental or arena challenges; the powerful lead monster was only half the threat.

On the patch of dirt furthest from them, across the arena, a figure sat meditating, cross-legged and with either of her palms resting on her knees. She hadn't opened her eyes on Natalie and her team broaching her domain, and they slowed and took a moment to study her.

The woman had pale green skin, with hair a shade darker that was tucked into a flower crown. Her clothing was made of the same blue-green leaves that dotted the Wispwood, fashioned in a simple arrangement that was somehow elegant. At a guess, she was eight or nine feet tall--not human sized. A staff of gnarled wood rested to her side, within reach.

Their opponent exuded a certain connection with nature--like she was as much part of this forest as the grass, dirt, and trees.

"Dryad?" Sofia murmured.

Humanoid monsters were more common in lower floors, and also boss fights. Some could even speak, though doing so in anything more than a nominal manner was rare. Certainly they didn't chat with delvers. Whatever these creature's existences in the dungeon were, millennia of curious delvers trying to interact with them had yielded little. Natalie didn't expect anything different, here.

Though, she briefly wondered whether her class changed anything. Dryads weren't unheard of creatures--perhaps even fairly common in the Wispwood--but what were the odds that the dungeon had given them an attractive nature elemental for their first boss fight? Did it mean anything?

Frankly, Natalie didn't think so. Nothing about this encounter suggested her class would be influencing it. She expected they were in for a boss fight in the traditional manner. Indeed, as the dryad cracked open an eye, then a second one, frowning as she took in Natalie and her party across the far end of the arena, she felt doubly confident in that assumption.

Irritation showed plainly on the dryad's face, and she reached over and picked up her staff. Standing, Natalie confirmed she was at least eight feel tall, though disproportionally thin.

Branches and leaves slithered up from the ground behind them, sealing off the stone archway that had led them into the copse arena.

"You intrude on my meditation," the dryad said, cold eyes surveying the party. "How inconsiderate." She raised her staff, and the rest of Natalie's team likewise readied themselves. "No matter. The forest is hungry, and so I will provide it corpses for sustenance."

3.37 - Boss

With a greeting like that, the last of Natalie's doubts were dispelled. Sofia's exasperated suggestion that her class might make the bosses perverted was clearly not true--or at least not for this encounter. The dryad seemed far more interested in turning them into forest fertilizer than anything.

Natalie didn't waste a moment, seeing the dryad raise her staff. She charged forward. The four patches of dirt in each cardinal direction meant something, but she kept that in the back of her mind--she couldn't know exactly what until it revealed itself.

Quickly covering distance toward the dryad, her opponent raised her staff into the air in reply, pointing the shaft of wood skyward. Her previously blue eyes turned white, vibrating with energy, and power gathered at the tip, humming to Natalie's magical senses--and then a half-second later, to her physical eyesight too, as crackling white sparks manifested on the gnarled tip of the staff.

The hair on the back of her neck raised, and instinct alone told her what to do. She flung herself sideways, her plan for charging head-first into the dryad relegated to second priority.

A second later, searing white lighting erupted into the ground exactly where Natalie had been headed. A thunderous clap echoed through the air, enough to leave her ears ringing, and Natalie briefly wondered how well she would have held up against a lighting strike.

Bosses weren't called bosses without a reason--they were by the far the most common way for experienced delvers to find their careers abruptly cut off. Being roasted in a single shot wasn't fully off the table. Though, a durable class like Natalie probably wouldn't die in a single hit. Liz or Jordan, though? More likely, at least for a strong charge-up attack like that.

Which was why it was so important Natalie kept the dryad's attention. She'd flung herself recklessly sideways, knowing she absolutely had to avoid whatever incoming attack had been gathering at the dryad's staff tip, but she still recovered smoothly, turning her tumble sideways into a roll and finally staggering to her feet. The powerful spell hadn't been free; the dryad's eyes were still fading from their blinding white and back to their natural color, recovering from the expenditure of mana.

Natalie cobbled together her own key spell. Illusions shimmered around her body, growing limbs and weapons where they didn't exist. They were less refined than in her fight against Elida, because she didn't use [Empower]. Burning progression points whenever she fought a boss simply wasn't wise--that powerful ability needed to be saved for moments that truly mattered. If things turned sour, then obviously she would tap into that expensive resource, but if at all possible, she wanted to handle this with her base class.

Natalie arrived to the tall green woman right as she finished recovering from her lightning spell. Lowering her staff and gripping it two-handed, she swung in a wide arc before Natalie could get her own attack out.

Though seeming like a mage class, the dryad's physical abilities weren't lacking. Natalie barely managed to duck the hurtling piece of wood, and it soared above her head with a whistle of wind that doubly confirmed any attacks from this creature wouldn't be a third as easy to shrug off as anything else she'd fought thus far, barring maybe the mini-boss they'd gone up against.

Prior to this point, the humanoid monsters she'd been fighting had all been either shorter or equal height to her. Dealing with the eight-foot dryad, not to mention her gigantic reach with her wooden staff, wasn't an easy feat. Power and swiftness mattered, but so did the sheer reality of physical advantages--being able to swing and smash a gigantic rod of wood from seven feet away was rather hard to deal with as a shield-and-hammer wielder.

Still, practiced footwork and keeping a careful eye on the dryad meant she could sneak her own attacks in. The dryad blocked or dodged them, but every moment that Natalie kept the creature's attention meant safety--and opportunity--for her teammates. They had hardly been sitting around; Sofia and Jordan had edged in from either of the woman's flanks, and the dryad grunted as blades scraped her green flesh. The injuries oozed a dark green ichor, and it had a potent, disgusting smell, like rotting earth.

Irritated at having been surrounded, the dryad slammed her staff into the floor, and a shockwave blasted all three of the melee fighters backward. Natalie grunted as she hit the ground hard, but quickly recovered. Sofia and Jordan weren't as lucky, not half as durable, and not bearing Liz's empowering buff. A long shaft of wood hurtled toward Sofia, following up on the disabling spell, and Natalie only barely managed to barrel forward, shield-first, into the dryad's arm. The motion deflected the strike, her opponent's staff hitting dirt rather than Sofia's skull, but Natalie had put herself off balance in the mad rush. A kick to the chest sent her crashing into the dirt far harder than the first time, and even with her HP, a rib might have cracked.

"Insolent," the dryad said. "You should be honored to return to nature."

Black slashes of energy ripped across the dryad's body, one of Ana's stronger, slower-channeling spells manifesting. The creature grunted in pain as a half-dozen wounds opened up across her body, tearing into her leaf-woven clothing and the smell of rotting wood filling the air to an even more pungent degree.

Abruptly, the slashing tendrils of power stopped having an effect, a white sheen of protective energy covering the dryad's body. The boss monster pulled her staff close to her chest and closed her eyes.

Natalie staggered back to her feet. It was effectively the tank's job to be tossed around and bullied, soaking up punishment, but she still couldn't say she liked being manhandled like that. It was impossible to match a boss monster's might, but the disparity in strength still annoyed her.

She focused on the fight, those thoughts only flickering through her head. The dryad was clearly entering a special phase or attack--the white light protecting her, fending off their follow-up attacks with total ease, suggested that pretty clearly. Though special phase how?

"Safe zones," Liz cried out. "Maybe?"

It was a reasonable assumption, and a fairly common mechanic in a boss arena, so Natalie sprinted for one of the dirt patches. Sofia, just a bit slower than her, having been trying to break the protective white spell, threw herself the last several feet, the energy in the air building and the dryad's special attack clearly starting to manifest. Natalie grunted as she caught the white-haired girl and stopped her from tumbling past the edge of the small patch of dirt.

A second later, lightning crashed down in a torrent. Dozens or hundreds of the booming streaks of light scalded the grass of the arena, so numerous and frequent the noise overlapped into one world-ending cacophony. A primal instinct had her clamping her wrists onto her ears--her hands were full--in an attempt to block the sound out. Even with her eyes closed, too, the flood of light turned her eyelids red.

Finally, several seconds later, the barrage ended, and the dryad sagged, nearly falling to her knees. The spell had drained her.

Which, of course, meant an opportunity for retaliation.

Natalie didn't waste a second--she charged forward. The powerful lightning barrage had expended the dryad far more than her previous spells, and Natalie was rewarded with a satisfying thunk as she crashed her hammer straight into the creature's skull. Still, it was a boss monster, and insanely durable--it only sent the dryad stumbling sideways and climbing to her feet to recover.

The fight progressed that way for some time. Several times more, the dryad called that same ultimate attack down, and the team needed to go rushing to the nearest small patches of dirt. There were a few close calls, with the timing window shrinking with each follow up. Bosses tended to get stronger as they got weaker, the opposite of how fights ought to work.

Still, they were well-prepared for this fight, even having some of their gear stolen. The whittled the boss down, bit by bit. Ana's spells of black energy tore into green flesh, Sofia danced between retaliatory strikes and poked and slashed, and Jordan delivered occasional devastating sneak attacks.

Ana was the one who claimed the finishing blow. A cascade of thick black-energy spikes burst from the ground, impaling the dryad in dozens of places--namely, one straight through her chest.

"Insolent," the dryad repeated balefully, glaring at Ana for a long, suspended moment--then her face went slack, and the creature finally disintegrated into motes of energy.

3.38 - Warhammer

Natalie collapsed back into the dirt, releasing her hammer. She let out a long, agonized groan, her entire body aching. Being the punching bag of the team wasn't glamorous work.

"Fuck me," she moaned. "I've gotta be one giant bruise after that."

She wasn't the only one to slump into the ground, exhausted from the fight. Each of them had been drained, pushing themselves to the limit in the first of their climactic battles against a first floor dungeon boss.

Natalie especially had been through the wringer. Being the team's meat shield was no fun at all--though she vastly preferred it over her teammates taking hits, so each ache adorning her body was satisfying in a strange way, too. Pain she'd taken for each of her team members.

"That wasn't so bad, I guess," Liz said.

"Mages shouldn't be allowed to move so fast," Jordan declared. "That was completely unfair."

Natalie agreed wholeheartedly. Fighting the dryad had been like fighting against a fully competent mage, rogue, and fighter all at the same time. Just how nightmarish would a fully physical combatant have been? Though at least then she could have focused her full attention on dodging and trading powerful blows. With spells and lighting-fast staff strikes interspersed, she'd been juggling a dozen different factors in her head, where any tiny slip-up meant a new gigantic bruise.

At the same time, it at least meant each individual strike didn't shatter bones. Though the kick from earlier really had broken a rib, she was pretty sure--it ached horribly, though Liz's heals, and a rare usage of a health potion, were slowly patching it up.

For a while, Natalie and her teammates simply sat there and caught their breath. Curiosity and excitement won out, though, before more than a minute or two passed. Natalie grunted as she shoved herself back into a sitting position, wincing at the sharp pain in her side.

Ahead of her, sprouted from where the dryad's corpse had disintegrated, sat a chest grown from interwoven branches. The dungeon didn't want them to scour the arena for their rewards, this time: it provided it front and center. How lucky of them.

Truth told, the fight had been difficult, and there'd been several close calls, but that was the standard for the dungeon. All of them had come out, while bruised and bloodied--even the backline--in one piece, and that was all that mattered in a boss fight. Seeing how these encounters were far and away the most common way for Tenet students to disappear, no critical injuries meant they'd performed beautifully. Indeed, looking around, Natalie could tell the team was satisfied with themselves. Doubly true considering their unfortunate circumstances, having had much of their gear robbed.

Natalie pushed herself to her feet, and the rest of the team followed. Sofia, naturally, moved quickest, arriving at the chest first. That woman had a serious obsession with shiny things--she was almost always the one pulling items out.

Something odd happened as Sofia dug out the first item. She grunted and frowned, and where she'd reached in with one hand, she was forced to add a second. Planting her feet, she struggled to heave out whatever object the dungeon had given them.

A gigantic six-foot long warhammer slowly revealed itself, and Natalie had to help Sofia lug out and stabilize the item. The white-haired girl seemed mildly annoyed at that, though had clearly needed the help, which Natalie smirked at. Her attention was pulled toward the weapon, though, teasing Sofia taking a temporary second priority.