NOVEL NEXT 0021 – Boss (3)
"Hey, hey, don't ignore me! So what are you making there with your glowing lights?" Just because Sera wouldn't be paying attention to the full explanation of her sister, didn't mean she wasn't interested in whatever the mage was creating. Especially now that the construct had grown quite big.
Quickly thinking about the remaining time and trying to figure out a way to pass through the dungeon faster, Sarah couldn’t come up with one. She digging was out of question with the distorted space and while some kind of mapping spell wouldn't be a bad idea, the usual issue of her limited supply of mana still existed. Though she could probably try to participate in the battle with her souls. If she could handle a few of the beasts, it could save some seconds and she needed some way to damage enemies without using water anyway to finish her quest.
"I just got a quest to kill the boss of this dungeon within the next 8 hour. And to answer your question, that thing will hopefully offer us defenses against soul magic. Well, it's still under construction and there are a few-"
"Anyway, you need to defeat the boss. That is fine. But stop standing here and let's go." Nia interrupted her again, before any time could be wasted through a needless lecture. Muttering something about finding quests already, the girl was about to leave them behind. Discarding her ice and storing her enchanted arrowheads, Sarah and her sister quickly stormed after their guide. Not that Sarah liked all the physical exercise, but she had to reach the boss.
Sera seemed like she also still had something to add, but decided against it in the end.
The next encounter didn't wait for long. Cornering the four bats with her spell seemed to speed the fight up at least a bit, though as it couldn't cause any actual damage. Its intimidation was Sarah's only advantage.
Therefore searching for a way to defeat enemies, she decided to revisit her soul hurling idea. She still wasn't pleased with it, but she knew the basics for such a spell and the risks in its execution were manageable, hopefully.
Separating one of the souls from the rest, Sarah first tried to accelerate it by inverting the parts of her trap which would normally attract the soul. While this approach worked, the projectile was moving only slowly. It was still faster than her running speed, but hitting fast moving opponents was still basically up to chance. Also with the limited reach of her soul sense skill, she wouldn't be able to follow the trajectory, though the same was true for most enemies.
Over the next encounters the mage decided to again stay in the back lines and tinker with her soul canon by stacking the repellent spells, somewhat similar to rail cannons. It still hurt her to waste resources like that, but gaining a hard to defend against method to attack during combat as well as whatever reward the quest offered was hopefully worth it.
During her tests she also noted that souls seemed to pass through any material basically unhindered, even living organisms. Though that fact was only a small compensation otherwise wasted souls due to her bad aim with unguided and invisible projectiles.
At least a few tries later she managed to actually hit the head. Sarah had been looking forward to finding out what would happen when two souls crashed, yet the result was underwhelming. Did it kill the target? Yes. But she had expected something more to happen. Like some fragments remaining, some new matter being created, at least some kind of noticeable at the surroundings of the target, but there was nothing.
Though with how limited her soul sense was, maybe she just failed to detect whatever happened, be it an element outside of her skill or an issue with the range. At least her sanity didn't take a hit and neither did the sanity of her team members. She had made sure they were somewhat out of the way. Sarah didn't want to risk her sister and losing Nia in such an experiment would have been very tragic, the guide still had her uses.
A contract existed, but how many layers of unintentional harming someone would it cover?
Contrary to her expectations, the body didn’t instantly dissipate, the dissipation process was only much more accelerated.
With Sarah also defeating enemies, they managed to increase their speed. However as her stamina was rather low and her fighting style had become something more akin to a sniper, the improvements were hardly noticeable.
Though once they reached the 6th floor everything changed. Their encounters had already declined against the end of the 5th floor, but now it was as if they were strolling through a desolated cave. A very foggy cave.
Freed from the burden their speed increased. Or it would have, if Sarah hadn't needed more rests.
During one of the rests, Sera had enough. "I doubt we will make it in time like this. Also! This cave is even more boring than the forest once you take the bats and spiders away! So..." She turned to her sister. "Sarah, i'll carry you!"
The mage was about to respond, but got cut off. "No trying to talk yourself out of it! I don't care whether we could actually make it or not! I want to get out of here! Especially now that you have claimed the boss with your dumb quest!"
Sarah wasn't pleased, but her sister was unfortunately right. She disliked being carried like a child, but with her low stamina she had to admit that it was the best solution. At least nobody would see her aside from Nia and she was already aware of Sarah’s weak physical attributes.
With Sarah mounted on her sisters back, they finally started to make headway. While before floors had taken them around two to three hours and the hours in the realm were already a bit longer than those of their old world, they finished the sixth in barely over one.
The seventh and eighth had again enemies, though that was only technically true, the lonely monsters were quickly dispatched. The two instances Sarah managed to spot them before her team members, they were quickly killed by the mages new spell, while the other times Sera or Nia dispatched them without losing any time. No one needed to know that Sarah just missed the target and didn't want to waste more souls. A fact which would have been easily discovered, if the other two had the time to look at her spell circle.
The ninth probably had beasts somewhere, however as they managed to find the entrance to the next one fast none had the chance to approach the party.
They had reached the tenth floor.
[1:51:16 remaining.]
A bit less than two hours remaining and one floor to explore.
While the bats and spiders they encountered were all level 15, with the masses from before nowhere around as well as the accumulated experience, the beasts were liberated from their lives shortly after the start of an encounter as usual. Even the times Sarah let her teammates kill the beasts decreased slowly, though her class didn't seem to level with combat experience.
From time to times they also started to encounter statues in a more or less preserved state. Most of those seemed to depict humans or humanoid characters, though a lot were also just rubble.
[60:49 remaining.]
Wasting another hour, they found the last section of the dungeon. Compared to the cave before the structure seemed now entirely man-made. Smother walls, explicitly created alcoves for the statues, a concave ceiling with arches, the latter either to stabilize the construction or as decoration. Some further decorative engravings could be discovered on the wall, however the erosion and much more the spiderwebs prevented further examinations. Also that they had less than an hour remaining.
Fortunately the changed environment improved their delving experience. Side passages were now smaller than the main one leading to the boss room.
With them getting closer, Sarah also walked on her own again.
Turning around a corner, they found their goal. The passage got slowly bigger before opening up into a huge room. A few much bigger statues could also be seen, however details were basically impossible to discern as they were covered in many layers of spiderwebs. Webs created by the boss of the dungeon, a giant spider motionlessly waiting in the center of the last chamber. If her estimations were right, it was over three meters tall.
Without hesitation Sarah fired a soul at it.
However, aside from a blinding golden barrier, which flashed into existence for a few moments, nothing happened.
"I told you that there would be a barrier around the boss. As if no other mage had the idea to finish off the boss from a safe distance." Nia commented on the futile action of the mage.