Ugh, you… You can't resist the call of the stats, no matter how much you don't want to wear the dress. You knew this would happen someday though, best to just get it over with, like tearing off a scab.
…Except you aren't supposed to, no whatever, everyone is waiting for you to decide what you want so they can move on. "Yeah, the vampire was shooting black ice everywhere, so there's probably a combo there… Crystal and dress please… and I guess I might as well take the veil too and stack this dark thing high," You say with a sigh, "Sorry about asking for so much out of this one, I can fork over some gilder to even it out…"
"Don't concern yourself, we have all had such lucky draws at one time or another," Shimah dismisses.
"Yeah, you got pretty much nothing out of yesterday, it'd be kinda shitty to complain just cause the dungeon drops favor somebody in particular," Anshelm adds.
"What they said," Maya says, "Don't sweat it."
Well that's that, you take an Amrita from the loot plus your stuff… you refuse to pay attention to the sidelong looks Sera is giving you, or Maya's clear and open amusement.
Time to take the plunge you guess. You equip the two items, switching out your cloak, and deliberately don't look down at yourself until Sera sudden extreme interest in the ground and Maya's giggling forces you to at least assess the damage.
The dress… well first, the silver lining, with your… lack in the chest region the dress is merely low cut but not 'how can that possibly stay on'. However… yeah, you didn't pay much attention while you were setting the boss on fire, but the dress is gauzy… like really gauzy, practically see-through except for the torso, which is mercifully opaque. You can see your own legs through the material, and pretty clearly at that. Also no back or shoulders, you miss those.
Along with the wispy veil now hanging in front of your face you feel pretty stupid wearing this. At least you don't really feel cold or this would be a pain. You look up and glare at Maya daring her to say something.
Well, at least she's smiling again, looking like she's trying not to burst out laughing at your disgruntled expression. It's almost worse that Anshelm just glances once, and then dismisses it for going through his inventory. Fuckin Jerk.
"Anyway," you say rather louder than necessary, as Anshelm equips his new helm… it's pretty cool looking, casts his face in shadow though, "What do we want to do now?" you pause, your scowl lightening just a bit, "Maya, you wanna call it a day? I know this probably wasn't easy."
"Mm, thank you for offering Al," Maya says, still maintaining a cheerful air, as she adjusts her new hat, it's a battered leather hat with a wide, drooping brim, "But… I'd rather not just go mope around, I don't mind finishing the day up properly."
Anshelm glances over at her and shrugs, "If Maya's up for it, we can keep going."
"Sera, you have been quiet, do you have anything to add?" Shimah asks, regarding the alarmingly red Sera with worry.
"Um… I don't mind the dress, I-I mean, I don't mind doing another dungeon," Sera says her eyes flicking over to you for a moment before returning firmly to the ground.
You sigh, this stupid equipment… "Right, so… I was thinking Goblin Glade C? We are all level five, and its still listed as a three man dungeon on C. Probably the easiest introduction we're going to get."
"Mm that does seem like a good idea… we will have to do higher rank dungeons eventually, and the goblins and ogre's are the easiest ones."
Anshelm scowls in disgust, "Can't say I like doing the goblins, but yeah, that's as easy as C ranks are gonna get unless a new starter dungeon spawns."
"I would ask that we return to town first, if we are doing something potentially difficult. My stock of Amritas is somewhat low," Shimah asks.
"I'm fine with that, it'll let me equip the dark magic," you reply.
"Ah… ditto for me," Anshelm says a bit sheepishly, "I blew through a lot of SP in that one… Kinda wishing I'd put more points in will."
"Oh, by the way, what was that skill you were using in there, when you plowed through the ghouls?" you ask as the five of you set off back to the city.
"Oh, right, Bulwark… It gave two skills, Greatshield is kinda useless until I get one in a loot drop, but the passive skill… Juggernaut is pretty nice. Gives me a boost to armor, and it lets me use… uh, lemme see how it said this," He pauses bringing up his stat sheet, and reads off the skill, "…Juggernaut's charge, Upon activation you charge forward and cannot be stopped for three combat ticks, unless an enemy exceeds your strength by at least two. Inflict weapon damage and shield bash damage on all targets in your path. Six SP though." He reads off.
Well that's pretty nice, chatter gets less specific after that, though Sera's eyes remain firmly fixed on the ground. You sigh… This is annoying. You fall back a couple steps until you are next to the other girl, and slip your hand into hers, giving it a squeeze, "Hey, Sera, if you can't even talk to me while I'm wearing this, I'll ditch it right now." You say flatly.
Sera shakes her head quickly, "N-no, that wouldn't be fair to you, Um… you… you look very nice is all, and I don't want to be rude by staring."
You categorically refuse to acknowledge that you could possibly look 'nice' in this get up…. But Sera's opinion you guess, "Look Sera, I don't care if you stare or whatever, just stop staring at the ground, and talk to me," you pause, "Uh… I mean us. If you wanna look, you can look I guess."
It's around this time that you actually register that you're walking side by side with Sera holding hands. Ugh, no you aren't blushing. Sera is, but she's been blushing since you put this stupid thing on. Sera nods slightly, and squeezes your hand back. At least she eases up on staring at the ground, though you aren't sure keeping her eyes level with your forehead is much better… Ah well.
Sera's hand is warm, so you don't bother letting go. That's the only reason.
The trip back to town is peaceful, thankfully, though the lack of random encounters is starting to make your nerves itch. It feels like they're building toward something big again… but you suppose it's still almost a week until the city expected things to start being a real problem…
Stupid paranoia, anyway in town you play around with your equips, stowing fire for the moment and equipping dark… which seems pretty useful. Shimah and Anshelm pick up some more resoratives, and Maya, Sera, and you each buy and top yourselves off with an Amrita, it's a pittance at this point so you might as well.
-15 Gilder
Then you head back out, on your way to the Goblin Glade. It's a pretty short trip, so you guess the lack of encounters isn't really surprising. You can't shake the nervousness though.
Soon enough you stand outside the familiar copse of trees that makes up Goblin Glade in the real world. A few last minute checks, reminders all around for everyone to orb the hell out if their blessing activates, and you're off.
The first room is already different, the clearing is larger, and shoddily built wooden platforms line the trees. A dozen goblin grunts hoot and howl on the ground, backed up by four warriors, levels 5 and six respectively.
On those platforms though are a mix of eight archers and shamans. Anshelm sums it up quite nicely, "This is gonna suck." He says glumly even as he steps forward and yells out a challenge. You and Sera help, with you imprisoning a shaman, and Sera blasting one from its perch with a bolt of lightning, it doesn't quite die, but does get paralyzed.
Then Shimah elects to show off her new skill, raising her talisman and summoning a nasty poisonous mist that catches a full half of the main body of the goblins, and poisons most of them.
Then the goblins respond, and boy do you feel bad for Anshelm. If only because, as Sera complained about last time… the little goblins literally fling shit. Yeah, Anshelm is going to need a bath, the archers and mages mostly go for him too of course, but he weathers that damage easily enough. You can't call the damage trivial… but it is manageable.
Maya starts appearing now and then, killing shamans as she can, while Anshelm and Shimah concentrate on the main group, with you and Sera picking off the elites along with Maya.
"So, gonna guess the archer platforms weren't there last time," you say dryly.
"No, they weren't" Anshelm grumbles, "Why can't they just do a normal accuracy debuff, instead of this crap," He grumbles, wiping some of the …matter off of his helmet.
"We'll want to be careful going ahead, I have no idea what C rank might entail," Maya admits.
"Doesn't matter, we got this," You state confidently, sharing a nod with everyone before advancing.
You… well you don't exactly eat your words, but the next room comes with a nasty surprise. At first it's just a redux of the last room but with a higher ratio of warriors to grunts. However, once about half of them are dead, another half dozen warriors and three of the stealthy little bastards, skulkers spawn in from the surrounding trees. Sera, Shimah and you take some pretty nasty hits there until Anshelm gets the agro back under control. No one gets anywhere close to dying of course, but well for a few seconds there you got worried when Sera's health dipped into the yellow from a sneak attack.
So, multiple enemy waves are a thing now… great. Room three is the ruined merchant wagon, and that place is positively lousy with skulkers and shamans. You also get the pleasure of seeing a Goblin 'priest' which is just a goblin wearing a cow skull and waving around a piece of moldy bark, but the point is, they have their own buffers now.
Also, once you've pinned down and killed the little giggling skulker bastards a bunch of level six wargs burst out of the trees to join the party, fun for all! Wait, no. that's not fun at all. Once again your frost guardian proves its worth in helping Anshelm get control of the agro more quickly and helping in distributing the damage. It helps that when you heal it with a frost spray you're actually hurting the enemies its fighting reasonably well.
You do eat a couple of skulker daggers though, which lets you try out your dark magic. It's… honestly a little disturbing to watch them shriek and wither into little mummified corpses when they die, but the healing is nice.
When the last warg dies, pinned to the ground by Anshelm's spear, everyone takes the chance to heal up. You take your last Amrita, figuring you can save the Ether for later rooms.
The next room, the warg den, comes with a nasty surprise. The usual complement of wargs and Elder wargs are here of course, but there is also a level seven White warg, right here with them, instead of being a bonus boss. Also there are more Goddess damned archer and shaman platforms in the trees, but who's surprised by that at this point?
This is where it starts to get kind of hard, you and Sera focus on picking off the ranged attackers, along with Maya and her pet… which you haven't noticed much until now, the little thing is useful, but it's not very noticeable when it burrows around nipping at ankles. In any case Anshelm kind of takes a beating from the buffed out wargs, though Shimah is able to keep him healed and poison the majority of the wolf pack… notably the White Warg lacks the standard set of 'boss' resistances, Your Guardian needs pretty constant healing though, so you end up shifting your attention to that while Sera and Maya pick off the range.
They fall one by one until only the white warg is left. Alone, it begins to drop pretty quickly.
"Don't kill it yet, let me see if this works!" Maya calls from behind it. You all pause in finishing the heavily wounded thing off, and Maya activates her skill… and it works! The warg calms down, and its health is restored immediately. Her previous pet, the Uroktor, gives a sad little hiss and dissolves into black smoke.
Hah, now that's nice. "Guess it must not count as a boss anymore," you say, glancing warily at the gigantic warg now standing placidly in the center of the room.
"Mm, I'm pretty glad that worked! I think this one will be pretty useful for awhile," Maya says cheerfully, patting the 'reformed' monster on the head.
"Stupid dog," Anshelm grumbles, "I still remember one of those things nearly beating our asses when we first started, guess we've come a ways, haven't we?"
"Mm, we've gotten a lot stronger," Sera says with a nod.
"Yet, we still have a long way to go, but I think we will go far, if we continue working as we do," Shimah adds.
"Hah, yeah, Shimah is right, let's finish this place up so we can head home," you're feeling pretty good.
The next room is what the boss room was before. Indeed Mogo , the Goblin Chef is here, though he is oddly only level seven, and he is backed by a veritable horde of goblins of every type encountered thus far. He also has more than triple the health of the Warg Maya just got, so… he's been buffed.
Unlike in E rank, where he had a few simple attacks. The boss seems to energize the goblins by being near them, and he hits like a truck with that Cleaver, smashing everything in melee range with sweeping swings. It's a slog, putting the boss down, and every time you think you have him pinned he does this weird little boosted jump back to the rear of the enemy fighters and heals himself by taking a drink from a fat wineskin. The belch he gives afterward seems to be the signal to summon more goblins.
Still, although you have to take your Ether your party… Receiving a damage buff from your wargs howl, you would note, tears through the lesser goblins quickly, far faster than they are summoned, and once Mogo is alone, it's just a matter of beating the fat little toad down.
Everyone takes a moment to breath… and then its time for the last room.
The new room is the space in front of the hollowed out trunk of a massive tree. There is no goblin horde here, like you half expected. Just many… many wargs, along with two white wargs, as well as a den mother, which you remember from the mission some time ago. Staring down a bristling wall of murderous canine, you almost miss the actual bosses. Yes. Plural.
Tuk-Tuk, the Warg Chief, is the first one, a bulky goblin armored pretty heavily in scrap sitting on the den mothers back, he has a crude but lethal looking halberd and a heavy shield. The second is capering up on a platform in the branches, Kiki-Jiki, the mirror mage, a weird little shaman covered in bouncing jangling shards of glass and mirrors.
That's really all the time you have to think before the wargs descend. You activate your Dark Aura and move close to Sera, who activates her lightning cloak, letting you both benefit from the protection. Shimah's poison mist takes a full third of the wargs as they charge through it, and Anshelm weathers the assault, stabbing and smashing with spear and shield.
The Warg rider seems like a buff type boss, enhancing the Den Mother's ability to heal and buff, while occasionally making potent charges that carve worrying chunks out of Anshelm's health. As for the other one… you get to find out his schtick when Sera goes to blast him with a lightning bolt and it ricochets off and hits her instead. Sera very nearly kills herself with that one, and it's only Shimah's quick healing that keeps her blessing from activating, from warg attacks.
It's certainly a good thing that you have your guardian and Maya's warg helping with the tanking too, because this is hellish. Just keeping your guardian up and functional is a hell of a job right now.
Then the little dick of a goblin cackles and starts blasting lightning at Anshelm, making things worse, "Maya, go for the mage, he's got some kind of spell reflect ability!" you yell over howling wargs. Those few that push through to reach you, are fried and drained by your combined auras, and slowly…. Slowly you begin to make progress. It helps that Maya's daggers poison the mage boss right away, and he dies pretty rapidly with her up in his face cutting him down.
The remaining boss summons more wargs twice, and several times someone comes close to being forced to use their blessing, but in the end you win. Exhausted, wounded, and mostly out of consumables, you yourself having had to use two potions. But you win.
Congratulations!
You have gained
78 XP
10 Job points
100 Gilder
The party has looted
[Skulker's Shivs] Finely crafted (for goblins) bone knives impregnated with a strong poison. High chance of critical and poison. 150 Cannot Equip
[Warg Hide Boots] Warm and Fluffy. Increases health and resistance to fire. 180
[Goblin Plate Mail] Forged from bigger, thicker scrap. Gives a bonus to health. 180 Cannot Equip
[Merchant's Bag] Three extra slots. A merchants Rucksack, always seems to have Gilder in it. 200
[Mogo's Wineskin] three extra slots. Once per room heals the wearer for twenty five health when at critical Health. 210
[Mirror Belt] Taken from a strange goblin wizard. Has a small chance of causing hostile spells targeting the wearer to reflect back at the caster, also grants bonus SP. 280
[Tuk-Tuk's Slash-Smasha] A heavy halberd requiring great strength to use. Has a chance of stunning targets on hit, increases threat generated by user. 300 Cannot Equip
"Ah, I leveled up," Maya notes, "My beast taming ranked as well… looks like my pets benefit from my armor resistances now!" She pauses, studying the list, "I'd like the merchant Bag, from what Al and Sera have mentioned it seems useful."
"I think the wine skin would be best for myself or Sera, Other than that, I would not mind the belt," Shimah notes.
"Mm, nothing for me today," Sera notes, "But I did very well yesterday, so…"
"I want the halberd, since I'm going for that anyway," Anshelm says with a shrug.
"Yes, it seems we are running into more and more gear best for selling…" Maya sighs, "I think maybe now is the time to set up a party vault, I checked around awhile ago, and with five of us it would only be a hundred gilder each."
"It would be useful to have a party fund for necessities, not to mention storage for situational gear… I am for it." Shimah replies.
Well, what do you want, and do you want to set up a vault?
[]Loot
Vault
[]Yes/no
Evening plans
[] Write in?
Al Lv5
Ice Elementalist C
Health 43/67
SP 27/87
Maya Lv6
Dual Blade Hunter C
Health 65/81
Sp 11/40
Anshelm Lv5
Spear Warrior C
Health 134/182
SP 12/47
Shimah Lv5
Shaman E
Health 60/87
SP 35/95
Seraphine Lv5
Fire Elementalist C
Health 47/68
Sp 25/79