The Wolves Ch. 024

When the porcupines were within ten feet, I used Blink to get behind them once again, which caused all of them to immediately stop and fire off all the quills. I had a feeling my Mana Shield wouldn't stand up to four porcupines each firing off hundreds of quills, so I also held my shields out, one on top of the other to cover the entirety of my body.

I was able to see some quills flying past me with my peripheral vision, and soon after I felt the impacts of quills on both of my shields. When the impacts stopped, I lowered both my shields and saw a small pile of quills at my feet. All the porcupines were still looking away from me, so I thrust forward with both my spears, keeping them stationary while my friends dealt with the other two.

It took them less than ten seconds to deal with them before turning their attention to the remaining two, thanks to the ridiculous amount of damage Mason is able to do with his attacks. Or Sonja, for that matter. Mason focused on the one I used Barbed Spear on, since he would do more damage to it via Gash, while the twins focused on the other one. In less than ten more seconds, all of the porcupines were being absorbed by the dungeon, and the massive fisher called out next.

"Sonja, take care of one with Lightning Tether, please."

"You got it," she said as an arrow flew past me. It impacted the stone floor and dug in a few inches before electricity quickly formed and began coiling around one of the fishers, effectively taking it out of the fight. That left only three, which would make it easier to deal with them.

"Ben, I want you in a support role for this one. Keep up Aura of Flame as much as you can. Girls, Mason and I will take the left and the middle one, so you two take the one on the right. You wanna get us started, Mace?"

He nodded and used Whirling Leap, dealing a fair amount of damage to all three of them, and then followed it up with a Seismic Shove. While the fishers were regaining their bearings after being sent tumbling, I Blinked forward and thrust with both spears once more. The fisher was a lot stronger than both the porcupines and raccoons, so I had to put away my shields and grab hold of each spear with two arms, to help keep it stationary. I really needed to get myself some additional attacks, as I was currently quite limited in what I could do.

It took longer for the fishers to be dealt with than the other animals, but not overly long. I quickly had some help with the fisher that was gnawing on one of my spears, trying to free itself. Once it was dealt with, we all turned our attention to the one that was thrashing all over the floor and finished it off. That left the three larger versions of our foes, who all called out simultaneously and began running towards us.

"Sonja, tether..." I said. Before I could finish, an arrow landed on front of the fisher, and electricity began coiling around it. The fisher grunted in pain, but otherwise didn't seem affected very much. Bearing down, it continued running forward, and we were all surprised when the tether snapped, with the electricity dissipating.

"Shit...Mason, I want you to deal with the porcupine this time while I see if I can handle the fisher. You should be able to absorb the impact of the quills with your Mana Shield, just make sure to cover your face, just to make sure. Girls, you two should be able to deal with the raccoon. As soon as it's dead, help out Mason," I shouted as the the three animals got closer.

When they were within range, Mason activated his Mana Shield and then used Whirling Leap to get behind the porcupine. The raccoon and fisher ignored him and continued forward. I activated Mana Shield as I ran forward, and saw shards of ice and flaming arrows fly past me, impacting the raccoon.

As soon as the fisher was within twenty feet of me, I activated Precognition and stopped channeling my mana into my spears, quickly putting them back in their holsters. With Precognition, I was able to see the fisher leap forward, and I began stepping to the side as soon as I saw it tensing up to jump at me. It started harmlessly flying past me, while I was already winding up. Before it was past me, I unleashed a punch with both of my right arms, impacting it in the mid-section. It yelped in pain and I felt a few ribs break before it crashed into the ground.

It wasted no time getting up and faced me once more, growling, before it launched itself at me, again. This time I channeled mana into my shields, activating them, and then used Shield Bash. It connected with the fisher in mid air, stunning it, but not stopping it from colliding with my Mana Shield, which held strong. While it was stunned, I took both spears out of their holsters, using both Barbed Spear and Siphoning Strike to do as much damage as I could. This one was a lot bigger than the other fishers I had contended with, and I didn't put much hope in keeping it stationary for long.

I took a quick second to check the situation around the room. The girls had already dealt with the raccoon and were now helping Mason with the porcupine which meant it wouldn't be long before I had some help. My attention was drawn back to the fisher when one of my spears was jerked forward, but I was able to keep ahold of it, barely. It was back on its feet and was trying to pull itself free, but wasn't having any luck doing so. The fisher was bleeding pretty heavily thanks to Barbed Spear, so it was getting weaker by the second. As soon as I felt the cooldown was up, I pulled myself forward and used Shield Bash again to stun it again.

Putting my armored foot on the fisher, I pushed off while pulling my spears out of it with a sickening squelch. Before it could recover, I used both Barbed Spear and Siphoning Strike once more, dealing more damage to it. Shortly after the stun ended I saw three flaming arrows impact the fisher's flank, once after another, followed by a couple of shards of ice. The killing blow was Mason using Gash after he used Whirling Leap to close the distance.

I put away my weapons while watching the fisher be absorbed by the dungeon before noticing the objects left behind. There was the usual Mana Gem, and the white color of a tier E Skill Gem. I bent down to grab both items before looking up and seeing my friends doing the same. We had killed fifteen animals in this chamber, so there were a bunch of Mana Crystal Shards to pick up as well.

When everything was gathered, we met back in the middle of the room, with Mason holding open the bag containing all the Mana Gems and shards we had gathered so far today. Everyone deposited what they were holding before Sonja handed me another tier E Skill Gem, giving us a total of two.

"Two Skill Gems, not bad," Ben said. "I think it's a fifty-fifty chance to get one from floor bosses, now, and we were lucky there were three."

"We also leveled up two times in this room!" Mason said happily while assigning his new attribute points. "That puts us up to level fourteen."

"It's also going to slow us down a lot," Ben replied. "The stuff we're fighting down here will increase in level every two to three floors. Now that we're four levels higher than the stuff we'll be facing on the second floor, we'll only be getting twenty percent of the experience. I also realized that my plan earlier about going to another dungeon at level fifteen won't work, unless we want to try to fight stuff five levels higher. If we clear to the tenth floor here, it should get us to level nineteen or so, and then we can move on."

"It would also guarantee us at least two pieces of armor too, right?" I asked. "We got the common bracers and rare ring from Jihm."

"We're guaranteed four pieces of armor, actually. At this level, we'll always get at least one rare, and then a common piece."

"Meh, let's continue to the tenth floor then, rather than stopping on the fifth. But first, the Skill Gems. You ready?"