"…let's head on in, there's a locked door I wanna check out," you finish without missing a beat. "We can walk and talk at the same time," you add as you begin heading for the exit.
"So what do you actually do?" you hear Linnea ask as the four of you begin heading toward the tower.
"Pardon?" Lona responds after a moment, apparently catching on that the little dryad is speaking to her.
"Well, you said you weren't a battlemage, so what kind of spells do you cast?" Linnea says frankly.
You glance over your shoulder with an amused expression, "I gotta say the same. That little anti-eavesdropping trick was cool, but what kinda stuff do you have for actually dealin with enemies? You going to be full on support like Du?"
Lona gives your purple skinned companion an assessing look, which he returns with a slightly defiant expression. You're not exactly sure what's going on there. In any case, Lona responds quickly enough. "I follow the universalist school of thought. I prefer not to pour my entire focus into any one school of magic. Allow me to be more clear. I admit, evocation was not a school I which I had placed as much effort toward mastering before coming here, but I am capable in it."
"Which doesn't exactly answer the question," Du points out dryly.
"If I may finish," Lona continues with only a single glance in his direction, "I have a large number of possible skills, although I must choose which to prepare for the day. I am currently prepared to fill a defensive role, given that I was not certain I would have companions today." She lets out a very slight sigh, "I am still capable of acting offensively though, if in a diminished capacity."
You take a second to parse all that, "So you've got yourself set up to play defense, huh." You aren't really asking a question but she nods anyway. "We should be able to push pretty deep then, between you and Linnea. I definitely want you making my weapon better then, Du."
"Won't be a problem," he responds. "Once we get inside just let me take a look at it for a second."
"You are an enchanter of some kind then?" Lona asks.
"Something like that," Du responds, sounding slightly defensive, "My effects aren't permanent enchantments though, they'll last all day as long as you don't wander more than a hundred or so feet from me, and I can change them once I set them up."
"Versatile," the mage responds after a moment. "How then do you purge the thaumaturgic echoes of previous effects interfering with the addition of new enchantments? For that matter, what anchors the spells if not permanent runes?"
"Ah… well, because of the nature of my spells the echo effect is reduced…" you turn your eyes frontward again as the conversation behind you starts going way over your head. At least Du has someone to talk to that understands what he's talkin about.
The flow of magi-babble continues on and off as you proceed to the towers entrance, and pass under the first set of arches you reach. Once you're inside and away from the crowds, Du does his thing. It's kinda interesting, one pass of his hand and a little glowy lightshow later and your weapon somehow feels both better balanced and heavier at the same time.
Retracing your steps to get back to the door isn't hard, given that the number of blown open sarcophagi has increased, leaving the path clear until you've reached the turn that heads down into the room you met Ansom in.
"Gonna want to be ready," you inform your companions cheerfully. "There were a crap ton of skeletons here last time, plus another one of the little buggers summoning more. Think you can take that down for us Lona?"
"I would prefer Lady Estellor," she responds, but she answers you're question anyway. "I believe it should be no trouble. If you wait a moment, I can enhance the groups defenses as well."
Linnea hums thoughtfully, fiddling with her skull talisman, "Unless it's those really big enemies, I don't think Yuuka needs it," she points out.
"I've gotten a good bit tougher since yesterday," you add a trifle smugly. "I doubt those big lugs could do more than scratch me now."
Du shrugs, "I'm not going to complain about the extra defense. Do you have enough uses to be spending skills on a relatively easy fight though?"
Lona gives you an appraising look before answering Du's question. "The minor abjurations I intend to cast will last for several battles."
"Save your spells rather than using them on me unless it looks like we have somethin really tough coming at us," you decide. "Seriously, I'm kinda stupidly tough at this point, and the things in here seem too dim to really try to mob you guys instead of me."
"As you wish," Lona responds , raising her crystal focus to begin casting her buffs on herself and the others. "Do not count on the stupidity of our foes for long though. The enemy which claimed my companion was not foolish, and many accounts of previous towers say that the denizens of the higher floors are far more cunning than the creatures below."
"I'll keep that in mind," you respond cheerfully. You will too, but right now, you're basically a nigh unstoppable juggernaut to these things. Maybe you're just feelin a little giddy over learnin a skill that only the most powerful Oni warriors ever learn though.
"What were the enemies guarding the stairs anyway," Du asks as the air around him shimmers, and you catch the slight distortion in the air of a shield of invisible force forming over his left side.
Lona doesn't answer for a few seconds, still going through the motions of casting her spells. "…A Lich and a death knight, or a Reaver as some call them. There were also numerous lesser undead. I only escaped via teleportation. The room physically sealed itself upon our entry."
You frown as Linnea prods the woman with questions on what those are. You aren't exactly a scholar, but you do know that those are fairly high end nasties. You'll definitely want to be prepared before you head on in. Either way preparations are complete shortly thereafter and then it's on to the spawner room. There are over twenty skeletons already by the moment you enter, each armed and armored better than last time, with even a handful of the heavily armored and shield bearing ones mixed in. Most importantly, there are two skeleton's in ragged robes.
It hardly matters to you though, since you trust your companions to do their job, you just let out a warcry and smash into the skeletons front line and immediately smash three of them to splinters. Out of the corner of your eye you spy a quintent of colorful missiles of force trailing glittering light swerve right through the crowd to slam into one of the robed skeletons and send it down in a tumble of bones, and then you have to deal with being attacked en masse. The biggest problem, really, is the sheer number of foes. While rusty and ancient weapons bounce off of your bracers and even your skin, and even the sharp heads of the shield bears spears can be swatted aside, there simply isn't enough room around you for every single skeleton to get in and attack, which means some attention goes to your companions.
Luckily, Du can at least handle himself in melee, and you spy him at the edge of the mob fighting the handful of stragglers that aren't trying to bear you down under the sheer weight of numbers, another skelton bursts into fragments after being swallowed by a tongue of green fire. Another sweep and another three skeletons shatter to bits, and the second spawner goes down, destroyed by another barrage of unerring missiles. One of the nasty fellas with spears actually manages to jab you hard enough to draw blood, but that's the last interesting thing that happens in the fight.
As the last skeleton gets powdered by your club, you turn and offer your party a grin, "See, told ya! Barely a scratch!" You glance down at your side, where the shallow slice from the spear was inflicted, and your smile widens as you see it closing up on its own, a testament to your sheer toughness. "Not even," you add, amused.
You almost gave me a heart attack charging right in like that," Du grumbles. "You really are ridiculously durable though."
"It's an interesting effect," Lona comments idly as she eyes the dissolving skeletons, "Some manner of inborn magical effect?"
"Something like that," you respond simply. "It's a technique people back home came up with to harden your skin and muscles."
Linnea nods agreeably, "Some of the older dryads can make their bark really thick and hard to cut or burn too, so that makes sense. Maybe I should level up my job a little." She trails off thoughtfully at the last part.
+5 Shards
+6 XP
Kind of a meagre gain given the number of enemies, but that's how it is when fighting spawner types. Once you've split up the shards you continue onward, plowing through a handful of other relatively easy fights. Normal skeletons, even with upgraded gear, have almost no ability to harm you at this point, except in the case of overwhelming numbers, and with three other people with you all capable of attacking as well, numbers tend to dwindle quickly.
+8 Shards
+10 XP
+2 Bonemeal
Unfortunately it looks like someone else has already opened up the iron door, since it's lying on the ground. Looks like someone disassembled the hinges. You can't help but grumble a bit at that.
"Huh, someone pretty good did this," Du comments as you pass through the door frame. "No damage at all from the disassembly."
"That's not exactly comforting," you grumble. "If it was someone good then they might have already picked over any good stuff down this way."
"It would be a waste of our time to backtrack now though," Lona points out. "Given the enemies we faced it is unlikely that this was done today, so most of what lies beyond should have…re-spawned."
"Suppose so," you sigh, "We might as well keep going."
Your next clash is a bit rougher, mostly because you run into a platoon of those spear and shield wielding skeletopns backed up by mages again. You actually end up needing a heal after that fight, you don't have a whole lot of defense against pure magic attacks like that. They go down pretty quickly to Lona's missiles though and she apparently has plenty of those in stock, it's after that fight that you accept one of her 'shield' spells, since it can defend against magic-y bullcrap.
Soon though, you come to another split in the path, one hall continues straight on, and other… is a big ol' archway done up to look like a demonic skull, with the door as the mouth. Wisps of semi-solid darkness drift out along the floor like some kind of inverted fog. You give that one look and grin. "Well, looks like I know which way to go," you say cheerfully.
Du glances between you and Linnea, "I'm going to get overruled aren't I?"
"Probably," the little Dryad chirps.
"I do not know why you simply assume that you know my mind," Lona adds a bit dryly. "…However, given this groups ability, it is unlikely that whatever lies beyond will be too much. The chances of a mere elite creature exceeding the floor guardian is quite low, given what I know of these places."
"See, that's the spirit," you reply cheerfully. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
"Of course, it is also possible the room beyond has already been plundered," the wizard continues. "In that spirit, I would ask you all if you would prefer for me to expend my more powerful defensive spells before we enter. If there is no elite enemy beyond this doorway, it will be a quite a hit to our groups… stamina."
"I'd rather be safe than sorry," Du points out. "We're doing just fine against the normal enemies with the lesser spells."
"But then we might run into a nasty roamer, like that banshee that killed a couple groups yesterday," Linnea points out. "Then we'd wish we hadn't used it for nothing. Yuuka is tough, so even if we run into a strong enemy I can keep her alive till Lona can cast her spells anyway."
"Both valid points," the woman herself responds, before turning her eyes to you. "I believe the one facing the most risk should speak up though."
You frown, like she said those are both good points. You're pretty confident, but do you want to go against a possible big enemy without full prep?
[] Full Prep
[] Just go with what you have
((Will update the front page later))
