Dungeons and Dalliances Ch. 130-139

That wasn't ideal, since pre-warning of what types of abilities, strengths, and weaknesses a monster had could be pivotal to victory. That said, she and her team were strong for level twos, and this was just a single simple dungeon encounter.

With the monster having spotted them at the same time they had it, Natalie didn't waste time. She charged forward with a shout, her massive two-handed hammer gripped in both hands. Liz's empowering buff suffused her, even stronger than usual—and not just because of Liz's level-up and improved stats, but because [Juggernaut] amplified buffs. It was a sixty percent flat boost for furor, applied after everything else.

Power thrummed through her muscles, and her feet hit the ground hard enough to crack tile as she charged. Adrenaline helped carry her forward—this being her first real chance to show off.

Forgoing subtlety entirely, Natalie arrived at her opponent, the glass golem raising its palm forward and pointing at her as if to summon some spell or skill. But she interrupted it. She heaved her gigantic weapon forward with everything she had, pivoting with her waist to get as much momentum as possible.

A hefty block of stone impacted the monster's glass shoulder with the full might of Natalie's newfound strength. The blow was even more devastating than she'd hoped. Dungeon monsters could engage entire groups of delvers and pose a challenge, but faced with Natalie's strength, that didn't matter. On impact, the [Lumin Golem] went flying, Natalie's hammer hitting with a crunch of splintering glass that was satisfying on a visceral level. The humanoid creature went tumbling sideways, then slammed hard into the wall.

It didn't die in a single hit, nor was it even crippled, but Natalie knew she'd just burned through its health pool. It lay stunned against the wall, having nearly embedded into it. Meaning Natalie was primed for a follow-up attack. She carried what momentum was left and pivoted with flawless footwork, swinging her hammer in a wide arc, cycloning herself to her stunned opponent—and smashing another full-strength strike straight into the creature's skull.

One shot hadn't finished the job, but the second did. The glass skull crumpled, resisting for a fraction of a second, before Natalie's hammer punctured. Crystal exploded, and Natalie's hammer slammed into the wall. The decapitated monster slumped to the ground, not having gotten a single retaliatory strike off.

Natalie grunted as she withdrew her hammer—embedded an inch into the wall—then wound up a finishing strike. It was always best to be sure, especially when it hadn't started evaporating yet. She caved in the crystal creature's chest next.

Black smoke finally rose from the monster, its form dissipating. A core plinked to the ground. Natalie rested her hammer on her shoulder. She turned a self-satisfied smile to her teammates.

Who were, reasonably, watching with raised eyebrows.

"Huh," Liz said.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," Sofia said dryly, "but that was reckless, Nat."

"Yeah, but did you see how fast it died?"

At Natalie's excitement, Sofia rolled her eyes. A smile tugged at her lips. She was exasperated, but also happy for Natalie. Natalie recognized she had been a little too eager to throw herself into the melee, but she had wanted to show off. Regardless, while her new style demanded a more aggressive style, maybe not to that extent.

"A creature made of crystal," Ana said. "I can only assume it was weak to blunt damage, which is why it died so fast."

"Or maybe I just hit that hard," Natalie said. It was a joke; she recognized that three shots, even accounting for her new strength, was an insanely quick victory against an equal-level dungeon monster.

"Seeing how the floor's theme is glass, I expect we'll be seeing similar," Sofia said. She raised an eyebrow at Natalie. "I guess the dungeon also wanted you to show off."

Natalie laughed. Maybe it did.

"What do you think that spell was going to be?" Liz asked. "When it raised its hand?"

"We should find out, if there's another," Sofia said. "In case any stronger encounters come up that have similar abilities. We need to gather information for future enemies."

"So you're telling me not to kill them so fast?" Natalie asked.

Sofia rolled her eyes. "Not every encounter will go that smoothly. We are on the second floor."

"But yes," Jordan said teasingly, more willing to feed Natalie's ego. "Don't kill them so fast, Nat."

"No promises."

In high spirits, Natalie ventured down the hallway. She scooped up and pocketed the earned monster core before going.

Her brilliant first performance did prove itself to be an edge case. While Natalie had grown leaps and bounds from her level one self, she hadn't become a literal juggernaut, capable of two-hitting every equivalent-level monster—which were designed for teams to handle.

Still, as the team explored down the hallway, taking encounter after encounter, one fact did make itself clear: Natalie had been on roughly equal footing with her team in their level one delves, maybe even on the low end, but now, she might be their star player. She was simply impossible to deal with. Throwing herself forward, empowered by her new skills and Liz's buff, Natalie could bully level two monsters around, not only doing as much damage as each of her three damage dealers, but at the same time, being a durable frontline.

Even better, [Illusion] further disoriented her enemies, making her blows nearly undodgeable, and [Hunker Down] mitigated her biggest flaw—that the whirlwind two-handed style often left her exposed or put onto exploitable trajectories. Should she end up in that situation, she could activate her defensive skill and become invulnerable to whatever spell or attack had been flung her way.

In short, her level two upgrade was even stronger than she'd thought it would be. And that was before she upgraded everything. [Stylish] and [Bigger is Better], to name the two important boosts that would be coming.

Taking a break after their fifth fight, Natalie caught Liz studying her with a frown.

"What?" Natalie asked.

Liz chewed her lip, as if hesitant—which especially piqued Natalie's interest.

"What?" she repeated.

"I just ..." Liz said. "Huh. Don't take this the wrong way, but your class is really strong."

"Thanks?" Natalie asked. How could she take that badly? The glow of excitement that came with her upgrades was hard to fight away; the giddiness still hadn't faded at how well she was performing.

"Which means I'm worried you'll outpace us," Liz finished. "You're probably getting more experience than us, now."

Natalie paused. "I ... guess that's possible." It hadn't been something she'd thought about. "Should I take it easy, then?"

"What? No way. It's still better for the team if we steamroll our way through. I just meant ..." Liz hesitated for a second time.

"You might outgrow us in the long run," Jordan said for her. "Especially if your class keeps improving at a similar pace. We don't have broken abilities like you."

Natalie's brow furrowed. "I mean, maybe. I could've just gotten a really good level two." She wasn't sure if she believed that, though.

"I guess."

"But even if that were the case," Natalie said. "So what? Just means I can help the team more. I doubt I'll have to, but if need be, I'll drag you along with me."

"Or maybe her perverted skills will give equal bonuses to us, too," Sofia said dryly. "There's already one, [Stylish]. Why not more?"

"Or that," Natalie said. She waved her hand dismissively. "The point is, we'll handle that when we get to it, and no matter what, I'm sticking with you. We're a team. That's not changing."

Natalie would have thought it didn't even need to be stated, but Jordan had joked about it once, and now Liz had shown concern.

Personally, she didn't even think it would happen. Outpacing her team? Maybe mildly in the best case, a single-level lead, but not more than that. For that to happen, she would need to contribute an overwhelmingly larger portion to the fights than her teammates. The dungeon distributed experience mostly equally. Contribution mattered, but mostly when there were level gaps, to stop a high level from dragging a low level through the ranks. Delvers of equal level tended to stay in the same rough ballpark.

Natalie would have to essentially do as much work as her whole team combined to outpace them at a meaningful rate. And while she'd seen some impressive upgrades, they weren't that insane.

Still, maybe Natalie should focus on upgrading team skills. She'd been selfish in going straight for personal power, but she had no intention to leave her team behind. [Stylish] was probably her next goal, then. And whatever else came in the future.

Liz seemed reassured by Natalie's promise. Her brief concern passed, and they continued deeper into the dungeon.

4.27 - Mining II

Despite having arrived at a seemingly man-made dungeon level, there were still opportunities to find resources. Plants and herbs for Jordan, or ores for Natalie. They were less common, though, and sometimes took some searching around.

In Natalie's case, she found her first ore vein hidden behind a cracked mirror. Jordan was the one to spot it; she was the most attentive of the group and the person who also identified the most traps. As rogues tended to. Natalie wasn't sure whether she had a skill explicitly for that, or whether she had a keen eye. She certainly had the latter—but the former might be helping her too.

Either way, Natalie used her hammer to smash out the rest of the tall, elegant eight-foot mirror, revealing the stone behind it. Streaks of vibrant pink snaked across the stone.

"Pink," Liz said curiously. "What ore is pink?"

"Dunno," Natalie said, intrigued. There was a period after classes each day dedicated to extracurriculars, and Natalie had been spending it learning more about mining—techniques for gathering and identifying the various resources that she might find in the dungeon. She suspected she was even coming up on level two of her resource-gathering subclass, since she had obviously been mining any ores that she came across. Subclasses tended to keep pace with one's main class, or even progress faster.

Liz's question was more of an idle comment than a genuine inquiry. Ore veins could be appraised in the same way as loot. Natalie, and probably the rest of the team, did so.

***

Ore Deposit - Erotite

Quantity - F

Yield - E-

Difficulty - F

***

"Erotite?" Liz asked. "What in the world is that?"

Natalie's wrinkled her nose. She had a few suspicions about what was going on.

And so did Ana. "If I had to guess," the mage said, "it's Natalie's class once again influencing the dungeon. I'm no expert on mining and ores, but I've never heard of erotite. And the prefix?"

"Ero," Sofia huffed. "And it's pink. Not hard to guess."

"But what's it do?" Natalie asked, eying the pink veins of ore. "Should we be worried?"

"Not sure," Jordan said. "Probably not? It's ore."

"I'm interested to see what a blacksmith could do with it," Ana commented. "What effects it would provide when turned into armor or weapons. It's probably suited to your class."

"What does that mean?"

"That's for you and a blacksmith to figure out," Ana said.

"I doubt the ore is trapped, somehow," Liz said, answering Natalie's earlier question. "Nothing to worry about from an immediate sense. Go ahead and try. We'll clear the rest of the room."

The team hung around briefly to see if Natalie's first pickaxe impact caused anything worrying, but it didn't. Rock splintered and clattered to the ground, and seeing it wasn't trapped, her team wandered off to hunt down any other valuables. Natalie worked away at unearthing the material from the wall.

Quantity, F. Yield, E-. Difficulty, F.

Quantity represented how much ore was present in the vein, while yield indicated how much could be gathered from each so-called 'unit' of ore. So effectively they could be multiplied together to give an appraisal of how large of a payday Natalie had run into.

Quantity was random, but yield tended to increase the deeper into the dungeon one ventured. It was also the most important of the two indicators, since high-grade yield meant a lot more ore per minute of gathering.

In the end, though, the total amount of ore collected was what mattered, because blacksmiths could condense bulk material down into powerful metal. Natalie wasn't completely educated on the details of how armor- and weapon-smithing worked, but she knew even iron armor could be powerful if a blacksmith condensed enough of the material. Though ideally, a person would want a high-tier metal. Iron tended to be the metal of low-level delvers.

Erotite, though. Natalie wasn't sure where that would fit into the dynamic. Assuming it was related to her class, then what kind of armor, gear, or accessories would it create? Was it a higher-tier metal than iron? Something she'd want to use in the future? What were its upsides and downsides?

How was she going to explain what it was? Natalie shook her head, not looking forward to that disastrous conversation. She might have to open up about her class—at least in a small way—to another person. Shara, the blacksmith she had commissioned previously, had seemed nice. Hopefully, she was open-minded, too.

Halfway through excavating the vein of erotite, Natalie's earlier suspicion was confirmed: she had been close to a level-up.

***

[Mining - Lv. 1] progressed to [Mining - Lv. 2]

[Skill: Risky Excavation] earned.

***

Risky excavation?

Sub-class skills were rarely anything incredible, but they did help. Pausing to wipe the sweat from her brow, Natalie hefted her pickaxe out of the wall, then leaned against it as she appraised [Risky Excavation].

***

[Risky Excavation] - Class-bearer is granted bonus yield when excavating ore while naked.

***

Natalie stared blankly at the wall, letting the words wash through her.

"You're fucking kidding me," she said.

Seriously?

Just, why?

She looked around the room. The rest of her team was studiously going about clearing the large space. She looked back to the ore.

Well.

Efficiency mattered most. But she wasn't happy about it.

Cheeks burning, she set her pickaxe aside and started stripping. Halfway through, Ana, who was closest to her, noticed.

"Natalie?" the dark-haired mage asked curiously. "What ... are you doing?"

"Mining," Natalie said, shimmying out of her top and setting it aside. "What does it look like?" She yanked off her gloves, then unhooked her bra.

Ana paused, then said. "It looks like you're getting naked."

"Yeah. Sorry if that's awkward. Look away, if you want."

Ana didn't, despite Natalie tossing her bra aside. She didn't look surprised in the slightest, either. Natalie's skin tingled at exposing herself, but she didn't stop peeling off armor and clothes. She was tired of blushing whenever the dungeon—or her class—messed with her. Besides, if things continued in this way, then she suspected everyone would have to get used to each other's bodies—and perhaps intimately.

"But why?" Ana asked.

The rest of the team was looking over now, too. Natalie peeled off her boots, then pants.

"Got a new skill," Natalie grunted.

"For your mining class?"

"Yeah."

"What's it do?"

"When I'm naked, I get more ore."

Ana paused.

"That makes sense," the mage said.

Natalie turned an incredulous look at her. "How? How does that 'make sense'?"

"Because of your main class. And, I mean, look at the ore." She gestured at the pink vein of metal. "Erotite. Clearly, your mining class is going in that direction."

"Whatever," Natalie grumbled. She was glad one of them thought it made sense. "Let me mine in peace, please." She finally stripped her panties off. She kept her body facing away—her cock hidden. If Ana saw it, so be it. She'd have to learn at some point. That said, she wasn't trying to completely flash her teammates. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Ana nodded seriously. "Yes, you are. I apologize." She turned away. She didn't seem to have noticed what was between Natalie's legs. She had been keeping firm eye contact as Natalie looked over her shoulder. The mage wasn't even blushing, a strict professional. The woman was really something.

"Can I watch, at least?" Jordan called out, sounding amused at the situation. Troublesome woman.

"Shut up," Natalie said, picking up her pickaxe.

The effects of [Stylish] coursed through her, embarrassingly making it obvious that her team appreciated her naked body, and Natalie tried to ignore it.

She felt extremely exposed, and not out of embarrassment alone—though only Jordan was watching her, the rest averting their eyes. Natalie was more literally exposed, too. Lacking her armor made her vulnerable, and this was the dungeon. Danger could come from anywhere, even in a seemingly calm room.

In fact, with a skill name like [Risky Excavation], she wouldn't be surprised if there was a hidden effect to make ambushes more likely. Or maybe it made other delving parties more likely to show up. Who knew what kind of ridiculous things her class would throw at her?

"You should get an oversized pickaxe," Ana commented suddenly, an idea apparently popping into her head. "Wouldn't it work with your new skill? Make you a better miner?"

Natalie paused, then shared a look with Jordan, who also had raised eyebrows.

"Huh," Natalie said. "I'm not sure. The skill says weapon, not tools, but maybe it would work."

"Worth trying out," Jordan agreed. "Good idea, Ana."

Ana nodded, seeming pleased despite her blank expression, then turned back away. The mage was still hard to read, but Natalie was getting better at it by the day. She thought.

Natalie added the experiment to her ever-growing list of priorities. An oversized pickaxe. Maybe that was something she could commission from Shara, the blacksmith. For now, though, she was stuck with her regular-sized one. And she had a lot of ore remaining, so she got back to work.

4.28 - Prismatic Stalker

Fortunately, she wasn't ambushed. She collected her payload of erotite—given a decent bonus for utilizing [Risky Excavation]—then dressed herself without problem. The expedition continued.

Natalie and her team worked through the polished marble and glass hallways of the underground labyrinth, slowly racking up kills and monster cores. Eventually, they reached a dead end and backtracked to the original room.

"Should we try the golden door, now?" Sofia asked.

"Could be a boss," Jordan said. "Or a mini-boss. We're ready for that?"

Natalie adjusted her grip on her hammer, appraising the shining metallic doors. "Honestly, I'd say we're in better shape for this one than the others." Geared up and with significant power spikes from progressing to level two, the boss might be comparatively weaker than the ones they'd fought earlier. Though she doubted it would be trivial. No boss fight was easy.

The party looked at each other, then nodded.

"Gold door, then," Natalie said.

They climbed the staircase onto the platform where the doors stood. Resting her hammer on her shoulder, she eased it open and peeked in.

"That's definitely a boss room," Natalie said.

Inside was a grand chamber made of the same polished materials as the rest of the labyrinth. Notably, though, thirteen mirrors splayed out in a circle, surrounding the room. There didn't seem to be another exit. Not a series of hallways and rooms like the wooden door—this golden door led to a single encounter.