NOVEL NEXT Chapter 169 A Bit Of Grinding
Trillia found her friends sitting in their room at a table.
As the little orc walked in, Amelia ran over and crushed her in a hug. "Are you ok?! What happened?"
"I'm fine. Have a seat, and I'll tell you all. You deserve to know."
She joined her friends at the table and recounted what had just happened.
Fred was the first to speak up. "As much as I have urged you to let us in and stay at your side, I am more and more terrified of doing that every day. I think the dungeons will be a good test for the disparity between us."
"For what it's worth. If any of you want to go your own way, or all of you want to go your own way. I won't be mad. I'll still keep in touch and chat and I will always be there if you need me. But you all need to choose your own life and happiness over trying to help me with my childish fantasies of saving Alirast."
A look of hurt crossed their faces, as was standard for this conversation.
But this time, none of them argued with her on the matter.
As they got a good meal and prepared to head out for one of the dungeons, their door swung open.
"Remember what I told you. If you need me, call out to me, and I'll find you. Do not overexert yourself! Do you understand?"
Layla nodded as she stepped into the room, with Stas badgering her the whole way. "Yes, Master."
Stas looked over at Trillia. "Ahhh, just the troublemaker I wanted to speak to. Severe your connection with Layla please, do not feed her any more mana until I say otherwise."
Trillia looked at the two with a curious expression but did as she was asked. "May I ask why?"
"It's hampering metamorphosis. I need her to develop a few more regeneration skills before we can fully delve into the deeper parts of Xenoalchemy. Trillia, I am trusting that you will keep her safe in those dungeons. She won't admit it because she's the same stubborn pig-headed orc that you and your mother are. But she is not at a hundred percent right now." Layla didn't even seem to have the energy to shoot him an angry glare.
"Of course, Uncle Stas. I'll do what I can to keep her safe."
The abomination nodded and skittered back out of the room. Layla sighed and plopped down on the floor. "I am ready when all of you are."
Trillia couldn't help herself.
[Modified Orc - Cleric of Retribution - 141] Universal Mana Manipulation
Notable Traits:
Divine Affinity
Whispers of Divinity
Minor Abomination
Saviour
...
"You've grown quite a bit since I last scanned you."
Layla smirked. "I won't be left behind. Fred, I'm going to have to ask you to operate as the front-line fighter. My racial trait to increase my brawn is currently disabled, so I'm feeling a lot weaker and less stout than usual."
"That works for me. I wanted to try something with shields anyway. We'll relegate you to a backup damage dealer?"
"Sure. Everything else the same?"
Trillia shook her head. "I'd like to avoid using my mana. I need to get better wielding Leaf. If Leaf and I can damage an immortal together, it might be helpful for me to pick up some skills related to wielding weaponry so that we stand a better chance against eldritch."
Amelia walked over and offered Layla a bright yellow potion. "Ok, so Trillia and Frederick are front-line fighters, Layla and Malor are our damage dealers, and I am support?"
Everyone looked around and nodded "Ialu and Dire can also serve as a damage dealer and front line fighter."
Once the group had settled on their positions in the party, Malor pulled out a map he had been given, and the group headed further into the mountain home of the dwarves towards the dungeon entrance.
Trillia urged Layla to ride on Dire and grab a nap, the poor thing looked like it was desperately needed, but Layla refused. Saying something about needing certain traits.
It only took them an hour to reach the entrance to the dungeon, where a dozen well-armed dwarves stood outside, staring at its entrance.
Malor approached. <Dwarven:> "Hail and well met! Lord Rubious Hammerstone has given us permission to enter this dungeon to help with a potential dungeon break."
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The dwarf furthest from the door looked over at the minotaur, who had to bend down slightly in the shorter halls of the dwarven people. <Dwarven:> "Ahh! The enchanter! Yes, of course lad! We just ask that you not break the core. Do you and yours want any forewarning about the dungeon? Might be wise given the [Primordial] influence."
The enchanter looked over at his party to repeat the question, they agreed to get at least some sort of warning.
<Dwarven:> "The creatures inside are called rockbreakers. Big fuckin beetles that use their mandibles to rip through rock. Works pretty damn well against armor as well, so be careful. There are also stonesurfers, another type of beetle that can move through stone like it's water, they are a lot weaker, but they tend to grab folks by the legs and drag them into the stone to suffocate and die. That said, you have two minotaurs in your party, so you should be fine to get your people out of the stone before they die."
As Malor translated it all back to his party, their worry seemed to grow.
<Dwarven:> "Lots of ore and minerals can be found in the walls. I think the dungeon uses them to up-armor all of its denizens. It only has six floors, but the bosses are a doozy on each and every one of them. What level is your group at?"
Malor asked everyone to give an estimate of their levels.
<Dwarven:> "Around a hundred and thirty. Ok. I obviously don't know you lot well, but I would recommend you not go past the second floor, especially with it being all fucky in there right now."
The group nodded and gathered their thoughts before entering.
-=====-
The entrance to the dungeon was barren, rough tunnels that had dozens of holes ripped into the walls where things could be lying in wait.
Layla grabbed Fred on the shoulder to stop them from advancing about thirty feet from the entrance. "Something is coming in the walls. We should form up for a back attack."
The group didn't question how she knew. Trillia went to the back of the formation, and they continued moving slowly. Just as the ground shifted and Amelia yelped, Layla summoned a spear from her storage item and slammed it straight through solid stone. Blood and ichor began to pour out of the whole. Malor turned to pry the mandibles off of Amelia's ankle.
"Damn! No warning at all! Be careful! They can hide from a minotaur's stone sense." Amelia cursed as she looked at the mandibles on the creature.
A loud clang! caused them to spin and see Trillia squaring off against three of the rock breakers.
Beetles was a very apt description, but the dwarf should have added a giant in there somewhere. Each of the rock breakers was easily three feet tall and four wide. Their mandibles looked closer to pickaxes than something on an insect. Their shells glistened with a metallic tint.
Trillia's shield positioned itself in front of one of the rock breakers, who thought it an easy target to snap in half. The artifact, however, had different plans and forced the creature's mandibles to get stuck around it.
Trillia danced to the side of the other two approaching rock breakers with Leaf in both hands. She wasn't entirely sure how to channel mana into Leaf when she wasn't in a life-or-death situation. She tried all the same, just as she used to do with Sliver of Fate. Thinking back to what Honos had told her about thinking of an all-consuming fire.
Her mana answered the call, enveloping Leaf in a bright orange flame, words bubbled up in her mind and she happily sang them out as the system guided her. "Purge the wicked and the righteous! [Burning Blade]!"
She brought the greatsword down expecting to meet resistance on contact with the creature's metallic shell. Instead, it sliced clean through and sunk a few inches into the ground, with a grunt and a tug her blade was free again.
Layla jumped over Trillia with a level of agility that the little orc shouldn't have had, this time with a mace back in her hands. "Devastate all before me! [Radiant Blow]!"
The mace thunked into the face of a rockbreaker, and a brilliant white light blew the thing's head clean off.
Ialu and Dire had tag-teamed the last of the three rock breakers, nipping at its legs and causing it to disorient itself trying to pick a target. They ripped it apart leg by leg before sinking their fangs into its underbelly.
Malor, Fred, and Amelia stood at the ready, waiting for another attack that didn't come.
The group waited in the hall for a few minutes before relaxing slightly. Trillia and Layla pulled out daggers and went to work dissecting the creatures.
"I think we should keep fighting like this." Amelia said as she watched them work and plucked away on a small harp for a minor boost to regeneration. "The two of you with the wolves are a solid team, and the three of us can operate as another team. This way, neither group is caught off guard by reinforcements unless we're all fighting. If things look bad, we can jump in to help."
Trillia pulled out a small circular orb that was a monster core. "These again? I agree with Amelia, as we move through the dungeon we can also rotate the teams slightly to see who works better with what group. Malor, do you want the cores?"
Malor picked the core up from her fingertips and studied it. "The system information on it looks different...is something changing in the system?"
Trillia scanned one of the cores.
Monster Core: Tier 3 [Earth, Metal] [Mountainous] [Insect]
Why had it changed?
The group glanced at him with a bit of worry but didn't speak more about it. Malor shook his head. "I think it better if you let Dire and Ialu consume them. Simon and Taz said that creatures like them have different systems, right? They are part of our group as much as any of us are. If we can let them consume the first few dozen to gain whatever skills these beetles have, Fred and I can take what's left for the purposes of enchanting and crafting armor."
The group nodded. Dire ate the first core to see how it would affect his stats. The creature reached out with Ialu to Trillia's mind.
"It bolsters my vitality and has given me progress towards a passive called Crushing Grasp. The passive lets my attacks ignore some of the hardness of non-artifact material."
Trillia related the information to the group.
Fred came over and looked down at the cores. "Damn. I wonder if we could forge a blade and enchant it to do something similar? I think that's an incredible ability that both Dire and Ialu should learn. If they can get to the point of ignoring even some metals, they will be a terrifying surprise on the battlefield."
The group agreed and tossed the remaining cores to Dire before setting off further into the dungeon.