Pushing the Limits

Stella decided to spend the next few days delving into the dungeon trying to gain excelia and some inspiration for her thaumaturgy, she wanted some way to use her wand in combat because currently it could only be used for crafting.

She had made it back to the 10th floor with little difficulty with her new stats. She had made her way down to floor 12, and upon making it towards the stairs to the 13th she faced off against an infant dragon.

The dragon hadn't noticed Stella yet, and she decided to use that to her advantage by preparing a small bag filled with some alumentum she had prepared before entering. Quickly alerting the dragon and baiting it into attacking her Stella kited the dragon around till she saw it ready a breath attack, and as it did she threw the bag of alumentum into its mouth.

Stella watched as the head of the dragon exploded, showering her in blood and chunks of flesh.

"That's nasty, but for a level 2 monster it went down pretty easily with some simple planning."

She went on her way making it to the 15th floor before something changed, the floor was dead silent and filled with scorch marks and arrows. After wandering around the floor with extreme care she found out why there were scorch marks everywhere.

A creeper, a monster that she did not expect to see here, though considering the zombies she saw also looked vaguely familiar she should have figured and if the creepers are anything to go by then the arrows likely meant that there were skeletons as well.

"Well a shield is on the to-do list, that was always helpful in dealing with the skeletons, and even the creepers."

Killing a few creepers took much more effort than it took to kill other monsters, often ending in Stella getting thrown back by the explosion.

"Ok, some ranged options need to be found, fighting explosions with explosions does not work well."

After killing a few creepers without having them explode some skeletons showed up and luck would have it, a skeleton shot an arrow that missed her and instead hit a creeper sneaking up behind her.

After clearing out the monsters that were left she found some gunpowder, bones, arrows, and a record that had been dropped by that creeper that got teamkilled. She really wondered how other adventurers got through this floor without major issues, the constant threat of explosions caused her to constantly check her back.

She did however realize that she had taken a wrong turn and entered a new section of the dungeon. This section was not on the map but it also had a staircase but decided to map the rest of the area before heading down.

Upon going down the stairs she entered a large cavern that was covered in spider webs and large quartz crystals. Turns out the webs belonged to huge brown spiders, that were far faster than she was.

Stella was able to kill a few and gather the silk and eyes they dropped, she also gathered some of the webs and quartz just in case.

Stella was making her way through the cavern relatively unhindered until she got jumped by 30+ spiders. She was surrounded and couldn't use alumentum due to the fact that the spiders were too close and that most of the walls and floors were covered in webs, she would end up burning herself alive if she did.

"I really need to think things through better, I should have left this to the guild or familia this was too much for just me.''Stella was really regretting entering without proper countermeasures.

She was able to crush and smash about 10 spiders before they started launching webs. Soon she was fighting against the webs rather than the monsters. She had gotten hit quite a few times now and bitten 2 or 3 times as well.

Luckily these spiders didn't seem venomous, so she didn't have to worry too much about dying of poison, she did have to worry about the webs. They had locked her hammer to the wall and she was having a hard time moving now with the number of webs she was covered in.

Things started to look desperate and Stella activated the taint ripping through the webs. She ripped the legs of one spider off and stabbed it through another. Slowly ripping and tearing until all the spiders were killed.

Deactivating the taint she watched it grow a small portion onto her forearm. Unfortunately the exhaustion of killing spiders for a few hours set in, she had a hard time keeping her eyes open, but grabbing her hammer and making her way towards the exit of the cave she almost held through.

The spiders had caught up and started to web her feet, stopping her from moving. She activated the taint once more and tore her way through the spiders shambling to the exit. She had forced her way through the creeper cave and decided to head down instead of up.

Stella knew there was a safe zone on the 18th floor so she slowly made her way down, tearing through the monsters in her path. She could feel the taint growing as she made her way through the dungeon, but if she stopped using it then she would very likely die to monsters.

She had put the hammer away when she got to the goliath's room, and upon seeing the goliath alive she cursed, she would have to kill it before descending.

She ran at the goliath easily dodging its punches and weaving through its legs she jumped onto its back. Stella then started to tear at the goliath's back, ripping its spine out before thrusting her hand into its exposed back searching for its mana crystal.

The entire time the goliath was roaring and trying to get Stella off of its back. The Loki familia had headed into the dungeon to try to pay for their debts, and to deal with the goliath on the 17th floor before another party got to it but upon getting to the 17th floor they saw Stella.

They watched as she sprinted at the monster, easily dodging its strikes before tearing her way through its back, ripping the mana crystal out of its chest before falling and collapsing.

"Hey Finn, are you SURE that Stella isn't level 4?"Tione did not expect to see Stella in the dungeon nor did she expect to see a level one kill a level 4 monster.

"You know after seeing that, no, I don't know."Finn was very surprised

"Just grab the stuff and bring Stella with us, I don't think she would have done that normally."Riviera saw the blood-covered Stella and worried for the poor child.

Stella didn't remember what happened after she entered the 17th floor. Everything went hazy and she only remembered falling asleep while seeing her familia members.

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Word Count: 1165

More dungeon exploration along with a little showcase of what the taint can really do! Suggestions and power stones are always welcomed!