3 The Beginning (3)

Just as Galahad said, the monsters crawling along the walls were indeed silver rats. They were two-foot long rodents with white-grey fur, short snouts, and long, sharp nails that gave them the ability to climb along the dirt walls.

Before they knew it, half a dozen silver rats had dug out of the walls and scurried towards their group, aiming to surround and overwhelm their new source of food. One was hasty and jumped straight towards the three fighter classes in front of the group.

Though the brothers had already drawn their weapons; Victor was the one who stepped forward to take the attack. He slung his battleaxe off his shoulder and swiped it diagonally across the path of the jumping rat. The swing connected the axe right down the middle of the rat's body, it exploded into a mess of blood and shredded organs opening up all along the ground.

Victor didn't stop there, he kept the swing going and made a full rotation with the heavy end of the axe providing the momentum. The axe reached the peak of the arc above his head for a moment, he then forced it down as hard as he could.

The axe became a gray blur as it hit the ground hard enough to shake dust off the ceiling and left a web of cracks that split open across ground. When Victor shook the tunnel, seven more rats fell out of the ceiling and wall.

Though they gained additional enemies to the total, Victor destroyed their only chance for a second ambush in simply one move. That was the embodiment of pure strength attributed to the berserker class; the battle class made to let loose their rage.

'Always with the blank face, huh Victor.' Galahad commented to himself. Anyone else would say that's rude, but he was not wrong; most berserkers screamed or even let out their untamed rage faces when they attacked. For some reason Victor always kept the same facial expressions; he looked somewhat bored most of the time.

Nobody stood still for long as each member took action against the rats. They learned through so many dungeon ambushes that attacking while the enemy is disoriented will prove to efficiently raise their kill counts.

Heath and Mycroft stabbed their swords into a few of the fallen rats while Victor yanked his axe out the five-inch divot he made in the hard dirt floor. Victor and the brothers ween't concerned about their backsides as yellow flames rose up from the ground close behind them.

"I am all set, watch out boys." called out Rosetta, as she spun her arms out in front with her eyes closed. Although she looked like she was trying to perform an small alluring dance with her upper body, she was actually manipulating the flames behind the three males in front.

"Flame Whip!" She shouted. After calling out, the flames grew more intense and started to jump straight after the rats outside of the swordsmen's range. The flames continued to grow and lash out across the tunnel like ravenous, yellow snakes, eating at any of the little preys they could find.

The yellow lights danced across her olive-colored skin, shining with a brilliant contrast in the darkness of the tunnel.

"You brought out your second strongest move against a few dozen silver rats?" Galahad asked from her side.

"Well I'm trying to raise the spell's proficiency, can't blame me for wanting to practice." she shrugged.

"That doesn't stop it from being over kill." He muttered.

Meanwhile Trista was taking on the rear defense all by herself. Galahad glance back and saw she already slashed apart four of the rats and was currently grouping a few more together as they chased her.

Trista suddenly jumped twisted into the air, performing a flying kick to launch one jumping rat into two more that were about to pounce at her. Immediately after the kick, she threw a long dagger out her belt that sunk into the group of rats she had trailing her. Her movements were very fluid and lasting for only a moment as she already begun targeting a new enemy.

Ten minutes went by, the only person to experience any sort of damage was Trista, who was grazed on the wrist by a silver rat's long teeth while shoving her dagger into it's throat.

At the end of the fight, all their blades shone a glint of red blood and guts as the battle class members made quick work of the rats that attempted a two-layer ambush. The only one whose blade was not drenched, was Galahad's short sword, sitting in his right hand.

Though Galahad wasn't directly a part of the action, he provided a very vital roll to the team as a support class magician. He swapped boosts between his teammates to help them perform greater in battle.

Most early starting adventuring parties thought supporting classes were not that useful for fighting or healing, but they didn't realize how much of a difference their boosts were in battle as time went on. If a series of buffs could be applied and changed in certain moments, the buffed teammates could unleash over double their original power.

The average level of Galahad's team was 25, but his fast switching support skills, he pushed them to easily over power monsters that rivaled level 30 adventurers.

On the backside of his Karmic Plate; he could pull up the health stats of his tethered teammates and change the properties of the mana he flowed to them with ease. It was a special function Galahad bought specifically with his Karmic plate in order to survey the team. The crystal plate currently sat inside an arm brace designed to hold his plate under his fore arm when he was in the dungeon.

Suddenly a deep rumble shook the tunnel and brought down even more dust than Victor's attack did before. A large screech could be heard, muffled beneath their feet, and it was growing louder with each passing moment.

'Looks like the silver rats were acting as a front door alarm to whatever is lurking below.' Galahad thought.

Just in case another sudden attack came on, it would be better for his team to have the team's durability at the highest. Galahad's awareness to surrounding dangers paired well with his ability to boost his team's overall stats. He switched the three warriors in the front to defense, changed himself and Rosetta to speed, and he healed Trista until she seemed fine, then swapped her to speed as well.

The limits of a support mage was the mana tethers could only allow one type of support skill to the members, he couldn't produce two at once for an individual. At his level, he could tether himself to a maximum seven adventurers and give each of them a single boost.

The ground in front the team bulged for a moment, then erupted into a explosive shower of rocks and dirt. A massive rat paw the size of human face emerged from the newly opened hole in the ground, then the monster pulled itself out completely.

"I believe we just found mama silver." Galahad made a small comment that went unnoticed by the rest of the team.

He was correct in a sense, standing in front of them was an over sized silver rat that was four times the size of the now dead ones. It's massive body jostled dirt off of its thick, silver and white fur, making a loud rumbling with every movement it made. On its massive teeth were various scratches and bloodstains from the decades of living in the underground.

Trista jumped over Galahad and Rosetta's heads to throw a dagger straight into the beast's face. The rat raised its head at attention to the flash of metal hurtling towards her. The blade made a loud clanging when it bounced off the monster's teeth, and fell to the ground with an unpleasant splintering noise.

"Shit." Trista shouted when she landed. She didn't think the monster's massive front worked like a shield against her long dagger, now she was down one of her only two weapons.

Everyone backed a few yards away. The giant rat was unfazed by Trista's attack, but its soulless, dark eyes began to show hostility.

"Shit, this thing looks like it's somewhat intelligent, be careful." Rosetta commanded to the team.

'It was no coincidence it moved its head to deflect the blow. It didn't act feral the moment it saw us, so it has some idea of timing attack and defense.' Rosetta thought.

"At least this won't be overkill." Rosetta said while relaxing her entire body.

She shut her eyes, then brought her palms together at shoulder level. When Rosetta slowly brought them apart, a little red wisp of fire was now hovering there. When she opened her eyes, an inferno blazed underneath her black irises.

The giant silver rat was now alert to the mana Rosetta was projecting through her hands. It dug its massive claws into the dirt and kicked off to charge the group of adventures it was originally planning to savor before consuming.

The fighters in the front of the magician members dove to the side, well aware of the timing of Rosetta's plan. The monster was less than thirty yards away when the scene completely changed.

"Red Spark." Whispered Rosetta, she then unleashed her most powerful spell at the monster.

The red flame shot forward and grew forward like a horizontal geyser of raw power, bathing the entire tunnel in red light and intense heat.

The flames hit the silver rat and stopped its approach head on. The high speed beam of fire magic was unavoidable from just a few dozen yards away, and the brunt force it applied was powerful enough to reel the two-ton mass of the silver rat backwards a few feet.

The blast went on for two seconds before sputtering, and eventually fading to little embers once Rosetta's mana was depleted. The effects were devastating.

A straight, black line was scorched into the floor from the blast of Red Spark, and little red flames were bound to the little silver rat bodies that were in range of the blast.

Once the smoke cleared, the monster's figure was still moving; Its massive teeth were now cracked and chipped in three places. It wobbled while trying to support its own weight, then stumbled towards Rosetta in a last ditch effort.

It only managed a few steps before three blades pierced its sides. Victor and the brothers had originally ran to the edges of the tunnel to avoid the heat of the blast and ran back once Red Spark ended.

By the time the monster had risen up, they already began swinging for openings in its stone like skin.

The dying beast could barely raise her head when a metal glint was approaching once again. Its eyes could just make out the flash of Trista's other long dagger plunging through the base of the vertebrae, causing everything to permanently go dark for the silver rat.

The battle was finally over.

"Alright, the flames should die down pretty soon, we can still start collecting the orbs from the non burning bodies while the rest are almost done dissolving." Rosetta said before collapsing heavily against Trista for support.

Rosetta's Red Spark was a powerful move, but her collection of mana was nearly depleted every time she used it. Powerful attacks required equal amounts of power; she would recover after a few hours of rest.

The bodies of the fallen silver rats had begun to melt just as She said they would. The splattered entrails, blood, and fur quickly turned into small pools of sludge.

The sludge was currently seeping into the tiny cracks in the dirt, only one item in each pool remained unchanged. Bright blue beads the size of a fingernail were sitting undisturbed in the melting carnage.

Mycroft picked one up and closely examined it. "Decent purity, I'd say we fought at least some level twelve's. Someone get me the big one's mana orb, let us pray to the Nine it was a twenty or above."

Mycroft was the best thing to an appraiser on the team. He gave reasonable estimations to the team's sum of money before they turned in the mana orbs to the guild. His brother just thinks he is the greediest one of the family.

Heath walked over and nudged his kneeling brother. "Galahad might be holding something that might be better than the mana orb."

Mycroft turned around to witness Galahad unfurling a large fur skin that had a silver metal shine; it was drop from the massive silver rat.

"Nothing like a day in the dungeon." Galahad said smiling, he wouldn't change his life of fighting with friends for the world.