Chapter 28- Challenging the Spawn Room Part 4
Fartumal shouts and glows white, the Hippocampus turns towards him, three water balls beginning to form outside its shield. Orihana finishes her chant, green gusts of wind swirl around my arms and I summon a clone in case things go awry.
The monster fires the water balls at us, I focus exclusively on their movement knowing that I can't afford to screw up here. My blades move faster than they did before, the first water ball reaching us, and I easily send it into the second one, then have enough time to reposition my daggers to send the third back at the monster, where it dispels into the water shield.
Nerriwyn begins chanting, aiming her bow at the Hippocampus. The Hippocampus summons 4 water balls this time, launching them towards us. I send my clone at the first and prepare to deal with the others.
The clone collides with the water ball, exploding in a mist, as the other water balls fly through. I deflect each remaining water ball at the water shield but they just disperse, not affecting the shield at all. I being to worry as my mana reserves are dangerously low, and I estimate I can only deflect 5 more before I ran out of mana.
Remembering that Orihana has a spell that recovers mana, I turn to ask for it, but Nerriwyn finishes her chant, her bow and arrow bursting into flames not harming the bow or herself. She shouts, "I don't have enough mana for the next spell. Can you cast that spell on me so I can recover more?"
Orihana responds, "This is the last spell I can cast until I momentarily recover my own mana."
As she starts chanting, I cringe as I know I needed that blessing, but Nerriwyn needs it more. I guess it's fine because I wasn't the main character in this situation, only Nerriwyn had the skill to take this monster down not me.
Plus, I had Mana potions in my ring but with it spamming water balls, there's hardly any time to drink one.
Orihana finishes her chant and Nerriwyn glows blue, then releases the flaming arrow she's been holding at the Hippocampus. The closes in on the monster then splits into multiple flaming arrows crashing into its shield, each arrow exploding on impact.
The repeated explosions evaporate its shield and knock it out the air with a crash to the floor below.
It lays there stunned, as me and Fartumal rush to capitalize. I make it to the monster first, stabbing at every light I can, while Fartumal swings his sword, leaving large gashes on the monster's scales. The monster screams out in pain, thrashing about to try to crush us.
As we're laying as much damage as we can on the Hippocampus, Nerriwyn starts another chant. She aims her bow at the downed monster and the arrow glows a bright yellow, sparks flying off striking the nearby walls. She shouts, "This will finish it off, back away from the monster."
As we start to retreat, the Hippocampus slightly gets up using its tail, all remaining lights glowing. The Hippocampus cheeks swell then releases a jet of water in Nerriwyns' direction. Seeing that Fartumal was too slow dodge the jet, I push him out of them way and fall to the floor myself, as the steam passes overhead.
She lets go of the arrow and it stays, rotating violently before zipping off in a flash towards the monster. The arrow cuts through the water stream at insane speeds, splitting the water to strike the floor and walls as it passes through, until it strikes the still open mouth of the Hippocampus.
A bloodcurdling scream can be heard as shower of sparks is where it's head once was, and it falls to the floor, the smell of burnt flesh in the air.
Fartumal stands shakily to his feet, "Is it over? Did we beat it?" On cue, in the seabed of grass giant chest appears, letting us know we did successfully clear the spawn room.
Nerriwyn falls to the floor in exhaustion, and I pull mana potions from my storage ring drinking one myself as I distribute them amongst us. The team drinks them but they're still a bit dazed after what we just went through, which is understandable.
Orihana helps Nerriwyn to her feet, "Well after all that we might as well check out the rewards."
The team made our way over to the giant chest and began dividing the rewards equally. If we were under different terms, Nerriwyn contributed the most and slayed the monster so she would have gotten a majority of the rewards, and we would get her leftovers.
There was 2000 total gold in the chest, with twelve Tier 3 Mana Orbs, which would greatly improve their class levels, but only have a moderate effect on my higher level.
According to the guide, the Hippocampus was the second hardest random summoner spawn to deal with, the first being a giant octopus creature which means we have increased item drop chance. So, there was an item for each of us in the chest as well. The items themselves weren't that great but were still useful.
I chose a necklace of Vigor, as it provides an additional 150 health and mana. Orihana chose a ring that increased her spells duration and Nerriwyn chose a necklace that reduces her mana cost on her spells. Fartumal went for a ring that increased his health.
It was no surprise that we agreed that we had enough of the dungeon today and followed the map to avoid any frogmen back outside.
As the doors of the dungeon close behind as and we're back in fresh air, Fartumal stops us and tries once again to apologize for he what he said in his panic, but only Orihana seems to accept it.
I remember reading somewhere that people tend to show their true self when faced with death and Fartumal was no exception. His actions could have led to the deaths of the whole team and a simple "I'm sorry" wasn't going to cut it for me.
He wanted to hold a meeting at the guild building tomorrow morning but declined to mention what for. After today, I wasn't too keen on doing any more dungeon hunts with this party as long as Fartumal was a part of it. I'll have to wait to make a choice since I wasn't in the right mind to make decisions right now.
The sun was setting as we silently made it back to town, and without another word to each other we parted. I head straight to the inn for a bath, so I could sit in the steam and relax from such a stressful moment. As I'm laying in the bath, I finally notice my missed messages from the system I got from the fight.
[You have unlocked the skill Enhanced Movement Tier 1- Your mana flows through your body, allowing any movement to be faster and stronger. Increases movement speed by 2%.
Sage Class LVL 27--> 34
Assassin Class LVL 1 -->LVL 8
•Blessing of the Hare LVL 1-> LVL 3
•Curse of the Snail LVL 1 -> LVL 3
•Curse Paralysis LVL 1 -> LVL 3
•Curse of Abatement LVL 1 -> LVL 3
•Curse of Diminishing LVL 1 -> LVL 3
•Curse of Ridicule LVL 1 -> LVL 3
•Mana Refresh LVL 1-> LVL 4
•Mana Discipline LVL 1-> LVL 3
•Mana Sponge LVL 1-> LVL 3
•Dagger Mastery LVL 1- LVL 4
•Stealth LVL 1 -> LVL 3
•Invisibility LVL 1-> LVL 4
•Shadow You LVL 1 -> LVL 4]
That's interesting to know I've never used mana flow while running, only casting spells. It was nice to see all my spells and skills getting an increase from that fight, even my Assassin class gaining some decent levels.
After today, I was positive that if I returned to the goblin dungeon, I could challenge the dungeon boss now. I stayed in the bath pondering this until my skin got wrinkly, where I went to bed rather quickly from exhaustion.
The next morning, I decide to at least hear Fartumal out, for I had nothing to lose and could decline any further attempts to go dungeon delving without redeeming himself from yesterday.
I got dressed in a t-shirt and jeans then stopped by the guild, where everyone was already gathered waiting on me. I sat in the open seat next to Orihana, and waited on Fartumal to start. Finally, he stands and says in a solemn tone,
"I've decided to retire from adventuring and join the military, serving under the Queen." His words come as a shock to everyone else, but I figured he would eventually make a choice to do something less dangerous after he flipped out yesterday.
The military here, of course, was used if there were any wars, but basically acted as the police, ensuring the safety of citizens when there was no conflict.
"Well, what about you Eric? Is there any chance you can stay in our party?" Orihana asked hopefully. I was sure that I was either leaving today or tomorrow, so staying in their party was not a choice.
Plus, I was scheduled to start school in a year and a half and wanted to get stronger. I couldn't get stronger by refraining from using sage spells all the time.
"Sorry, I'm leaving soon so I can't stay. I'm sure that you guys will be more than fine with your level of skills." I didn't have any good parting words, so I said some random bullshit.
It seemed to work as the two females resigned to either finding two more members or disbanding the party. I stood up, bidding them farewell as either decision they made didn't affect me in the slightest. I had my own problems to worry about which required me to not be here.
Walking back to the inn, I met Garbhan in the lobby who confirmed we were leaving today, and I should go get my stuff ready.
Repacking all my bags and leaving the inn, I stopped by one of the vendors for a fish kebab for the road as we retrieved our horse and carriage from the city stables. As we transverse on the main road with the city in the distance, I look back and think about how much I enjoyed my stay there.
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Hey guys author here, just wanted to let you know a couple of things. The cold weather got me, so I'm kind of sick and I'm trying my best to keep to my posting schedule but I get tired real fast. So this week if I miss a day I'll post later that week or do double next week. A little warning, the next chapter is a time-skip, I don't know how people feel about those so I tried to refrain from doing it. Leave a review and your power stones if you like the story so far.