Part 1 - The Manticore Training Dungeon
Chapter 5
Character Aurea; Level 1; Class Rogue; Hit Points 13/20; Mana 11/11; Stamina 32/32; XP 55; Next Level 45 XP needed; Rank Unranked; Followers None; Lethality Trivial
“Colin, you are going to need to get in there as fast as you can and use an area burst - what did you bring for the dive?” Huck asked.
“Uh, I guess burning wave would work? But that’ll put me within a few feet of them!” Colin responded, almost whining the last words.
“At least you have something that’ll work,” I interjected before Huck could respond. “These skeletons are resistant to slashing and piercing attacks.”
“Not my fault you picked a dumb weapon,” Colin countered back.
I stared at Colin with a burning intensity. Just as I was going to fire back, Huck interrupted me.
“It won’t be a problem! Colin, you’ll stick close behind me and nail the skeletons when they charge forward. Elise, your mana should’ve recharged several points by now, hit one of the skeletons with your flame lance but don’t spend any more mana than that. We’ll need any healing from you ASAP. We need to get through the last of the dungeon quickly. I’m worried about how long it took us to clear the trap.”
“I went as fast as I could,” I responded, aggravation entering my voice. It seemed like everyone was going to be an ass today.
“I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t,” Huck said easily, wrapping a heavy, shield-ladened arm around my shoulders. “I just wanted to stress that we are running low on time to be first. I’m sure all the other teams are behind us if they had to deal with that trap too!”
I eyed Huck with suspicion but didn’t say anything. It was obvious he wasn’t trying to be condescending, but he wasn’t very good at it.
“Fine, whatever,” I finally responded, “What do you want me to do?”
“Well,” Huck began dropping his arm and pacing in front of us like a general in front of an army, “Aurea, I want you to get behind the skeletons and attack them from behind. If you get the chance burn some stamina and get a Backstab in there. With my Precise Strike, we can hopefully destroy them in a hit or two.”
I nodded my acceptance and Huck ushered us into position. It went Huck in the lead, Colin followed close behind, and then Elise and I behind them. Elise would stay in the back, but Huck wanted me to quickly move around everyone and strike skeletons from behind - which wasn’t going to be easy. The corridor the skeletons were standing in wasn’t much wider than seven feet and it would be pretty easy for even the mindless undead to see me.
Huck went first around the corner, banging his sword on his shield, loudly proclaiming to the skeletons we were here. Colin then slipped around the corner, followed by Elise, and then me in the rear.
Two of the three skeletons had spears, though they didn’t seem to have a clue how to use them as they tried swinging them into Huck’s shield instead of stabbing with the sharp-tipped points. Colin was being skittish, trying to stay close behind Huck without getting too close to the skeletons. I could easily tell he was well outside the range of his burning wave spell. It required him to be quite close and right now, he’d be lucky if he hit even one on the outer edge of the spell.
I wondered briefly if I should wait for Colin’s spell but it seemed like he wasn’t going to cast it anytime soon - even with Huck yelling for him to cast it.
I took off at a sprint, and my Stamina dropped from 32 to 27 as it gave me a burst of speed. I had always been a jogger, it was the only hobby that a poor kid like me could afford in middle school - at the time, I was running more to escape the bullies than for the joy of it. Within the system, I could feel myself moving with greater speed. Even sprinting as fast as I could, I couldn’t keep up with the stamina-fueled sprints that the system gave me.
Though, the system didn’t make all my running experience wasted. Colin’s Stamina sprint was barely faster than his walking and Huck’s Stamina sprint was quite admirable. But I was still the fastest in our party.
Every point of Stamina burned increased your speed for five feet, which allowed me to quickly move past Elise, Colin, and Huck, easily dodging under the raised claws of the kobold skeleton as it tried to stop me.
Before the unarmed skeleton could turn to face me, Huck flung his shield out, bashing the kobold skeleton and diverting its attention back on him. It’s green health bar appeared over its head and dropped by a quarter from the smash.
Now that I was behind them, I could see that the crocodile-skull lizard creatures were already damaged from just Huck. Colin was still working on his courage, and so I decided to go after the two most dangerous ones first, the ones with spears. I crept up behind them. At least, crept as much as you could in a skirmish, and slammed my kukri’s point into the unprotected spine of one of the skeletons.
Normally, a kukri dealt one to six damage plus any Strength and class modifiers. When you were a rogue, you gained a special talent called Backstab that allowed you to expend Stamina and deal additional damage based on how much Stamina you poured into the attack. You could only spend a certain amount, equal to your Strength plus level. At first level, I could spend up to 4 points. However, there wasn’t a point in spending all 4 points, as Backstab only increased your damage for every 3 points you spent.
I expended three points, reducing my current Stamina from 27 to 24, and struck. I caught the skeleton in the back, which was good - there was no guarantee just because you spent the Stamina that you’d hit. That was reserved for the Precise Strike that warriors gained access too and Huck was more than likely spending his Stamina on it.
My kukri hit the kobold skeleton and I saw a red ‘12’ appear with a line through it, followed by a smaller red ‘3’. My damage for the attack had been 6, but since it was a Backstab and I had spent 3 points, it had doubled the damage. Unfortunately, skeletons had a strong resistance to slashing and piercing damage, about 75%, and so my damage had been dropped to only 3 points. Luckily, the skeleton had already been deep in the red, maybe only a point or two of hit points left, and it collapsed into a pile of dejected bones on the floor.
With one skeleton down, I turned my attention to the other two. The one that had had a spear was now only holding a short stick. Somehow it had broke the weapon on Huck’s shield, probably because it was trying to use it as a baseball bat. Both skeletons had a majority of their hit points left, and Huck had changed his attention from the skeletons to the mage behind him, Colin.
With his attention diverted, the unarmed skeleton got in a nasty attack, its claw tearing through Huck’s armor and I saw blood well up from the wound. His health bar dropped several points, a thick red segment growing larger until it stopped at about a sixth of the way down. I knew he had 28 hit points, so he probably had around 20 hit points left. He was fine. I only had a max of 20 hit points. He could handle the skeletons and their attacks.
Huck yelled back at Colin, “DO IT NOW!” and Colin stumbled over the word ardere as his hands came together, forming a triangle and a curtain of fire sprouted between them, wildly spraying fire. I was genuinely surprised that it missed Huck, by a few inches, but it at least did hit one of the skeletons, the armed one. The fire wrapped around the skeleton, causing the green of its health bar to plummet into red, and then black as the skeleton collapsed into a charred pile of smoldering bones.
That left one skeleton, the one that didn’t have a weapon. I kept behind it, waiting for it to pause as I readied my kukri when a burning light slammed into the kobold’s crocodile skull and it collapsed into a pile of dust and bones, its health bar immediately turning black from the hit. Elise had cast flame lance, an especially powerful spell against undead, dealing double damage against any undead that was a lower level to you. It was also an expensive spell and it cost Elise 8 points of mana to cast each time.
I was surprised how heavily I was breathing, even Elise was breathing hard though she had stayed in the back, waiting for an opportunity to cast her magic. The thrill of battle was nothing like it had been in the sims, and it took me a full minute to calm myself down and look around the area that the skeletons had been guarding. Huck seemed to recover faster from the excitement and was already starting to investigate the area.
It was a room that opened directly into the hallway, and it was hard to tell where the tunnel ended and the room began. The room was barely decorated and had only a single door leading out of it with two burning braziers on either side. The far wall had a bookshelf covered in spider webs, dust, and a handful of books that seemed to have long ago rotted away.
I looked back at the rest of the party, with Elise casting a heal spell over Huck while Colin complained loudly that the only reason he hadn’t cast the spell sooner was cause Huck had been in the way. Huck didn’t say a word to Colin, just thanked Elise and walked over to me.
Without waiting for an order, I began inspecting the door. It was a simple door, though there was no latch on it. In fact, I couldn’t quite figure out how to open it. Just as I was about to announce my findings, a voice entered my mind.
Sconce.
I looked at the torch sconces critically, noting that the one on the left seemed to be connected to a metal arm that extended into the wall. I carefully pulled on the bottom of the sconce, and felt it move down slightly. A soft click came from the door in front of me and it opened a few inches into the room beyond.