90. Mikal Mine pt2

The hallway to the left was filled with the insect things.  They were the size of a large dog, wingless, ugly, and blind.  Their primary weapons were scythes like a preying mantis, and a sonic attack that they could use every ten seconds.  But they were squishy, and we squashed through them quickly.  Fortunately the hallway was blessedly free of traps.

At the end of the hallway was one of the bug creatures that was slightly larger than the rest, but although it had perhaps three times the amount of health and did slightly more damage than the others, it died quickly.  We waited for a moment, but no loot dropped, and the hallway was a dead end.  Except for a very conspicuously placed switch, there was nothing of note.

Corinth flipped the switch while the rest of us were still waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Because of course he did.

“You idiot,” Joe scolded.  “What if that was a massive trap that sealed off the hallway and stuck us here.”

“System wouldn’t do that,” Corinth argued.  “A dungeon has to be beatable.  That’s why all of our detours have been detours instead of dead ends.  This is the hardest of the hard modes, right?  And so far, the toughest part of this place has been the traps.  So I figure the worst case, the switch triggers a bomb and I die, right?  Big deal.”

“You are cursed, idiot,” Leanne reminded him.  “Wouldn’t you lose like ten levels at this point?”

Corinth shrugged.  “Anyway, I got a prompt when I hit it.  It says ‘One of three switches opened.’  I’m guessing we need to head back to the juncture or whatever and flip the switches at the end of the other hallways to progress.  So if I hadn’t tripped the switch, then we would have cleared at least another hallway before learning that there was one of these down each of them and that we had to flip them all.  So I probably just saved us twenty minutes.  You’re welcome.”

Joe grumbled a bit that “None of this was in any of the guides.”

I bit back my “I told you so.”  Mostly.  I didn’t say anything, but I have very expressive eyes.

We returned to the boss’s room, and this time we took the hallway to the right, skipping the one in the middle.  It was filled with the Tunnelians, monstrous mole-like people.  They were at least somewhat dangerous, as they used group tactics.  Three or four of the little bipeds would charge Joe and occupy him while a ranged damage dealer, either an archer or a mage, targeted our healer.  But although they used tactics, it was always the same tactic, and a predictable enemy is easily overcome.

Especially when you have a [Spellblade] who can simply [Polymorph] the threat to the healer.  If you have that, then all you really have to do is pick off the rest of the enemies one by one and claim victory.

The end of the hallway had another miniboss.  Rather than a larger than average Tunnelian, however, it was a team of elites.  They had armor.  It was kind of cute, actually.  One of them was in these adorable little healer robes … and we killed that one first, of course.  Then its friends, who it had been trying to heal.  While the mage watched on in the form of a rooster.  Then we killed the rooster.

… I kind of wished they weren’t cute.  I hadn’t minded killing the naked mole-people, but killing the ones in outfits just felt wrong for some reason.  Still, they puffed into black mist like any other darkspawn, so I guessed it was okay.

We flipped the switch, and hurried back to the third hallway, which was largely clear of anything.  At the end, a large blob dropped from the ceiling.  The fight was largely a repeat of the first boss, although it was significantly weaker.  When the boss had despawned, a loot box appeared with a single item in it; gloves that boosted strength.  Joe had gotten both the cloak from earlier, and a new shield, so he magnanimously passed the gloves to Corinth.

When we flipped the switch, nothing happened.  Well, not nothingnothing, the prompt Corinth had been getting updated to say that “the way forward would open when the guardian was defeated.”  But the hallway didn’t change at all.

“Maybe we have to go back to the junctionchamber again?” Leanne suggested, and nobody else had any better ideas.  And she was right.

The guardian was an eight foot tall animated suit of armor.  It was very clearly empty, with glyphs and sigils glowing along its limbs to give it its animating force.  It noticed us immediately, nodded its empty helmet towards us, and took a sword stance indicating that it would wait for us to make the first move.

“Another thing that wasn’t in the guide,” Joe complained.  “Is it too much to hope that this is another tank and spank?”

“Probably, now that you’ve gone and jinxed us,” Ike answered.  “Thanks.”

“Right.  It’s an iron golem, so it’s probably weakest to lightning, Hail,” Joe commented.

“Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” I told him.  “There’s no point in standing around waiting.  This is clearly a new challenge, and it’s not something we can plan out.  We have to see what it does and react in the moment.”

Joe spat on the ground.  “I know.  I don’t like it, but I know.”

He began the battle with a [Savage Leap], a signature [Barbarian] ability often used to close distances.  Corinth [Charged] in after him before circling around to the side, while the rest of us spread out.  Ike peppered the golem with his abilities.  The benefit to the [Archer] class compared to [Mages] is their sustained damage output, as their resource replenished constantly, while a [Mage] often had to spend time [Meditating] mid-battle.  There was a tipping point in battle length at which point the burst damage a [Mage] could put out was surpassed by the steady damage of an [Archer].

Which would be relevant if I was just a [Mage].  I started the fight by lighting the golem up with [Empowered Lightning Bolts], and when I had burned through three quarters of my Mana, I [Dashed] into melee range.  With lightning imbued on my rapier, I closed the final distance with [Piercing Lunge], then began my usual rotation of [Slash] and [Thrust] and unskilled attacks.

With the enemy focused on Joe, I had no opportunities to use [Feint] or [Riposte], but those abilities were primarily defensive in nature.  [Feint] caused no damage at all, while [Riposte] did high damage, but only as a … well, only as a [Riposte].  I couldn’t use it if I wasn’t actually crossing blades with my target.  However, becauseI wasn’t crossing blades, I had more opportunities to land unskilled blows, which were modified by my skill in [Rapiers], during the cooldowns of my skilled attacks.  I did more damage when I didn’t have to fight defensively, despite losing the ability to use the high damage [Riposte].

Too much damage, unfortunately.  The golem saw me as a threat, and so when it reached seventy percent health, it abruptly let out a roar.  It used an ability, the glowing magic runes on its armor brightening, before a chain of runes formed around Joe, locking him in place.  Then the golem turned on me.

Those defensive abilities?  Well, it’s a good thing I had them.

My damage dropped off significantly once I had to start avoiding incoming damage.  I tried to step back out of melee range, selfishly hoping that the boss would change targets to Corinth, but the golem just followed me.  Fortunately the damage wasn’t too outrageous for Leanne to heal me through, but I always get a little nervous when I end up tanking a boss.  I’m not geared for it after all, my armor is quite low, and my defenses mostly consist of ‘try not to get hit, stupid.’

At thirty percent health, the boss abruptly used its crowd control ability again.  On me.  It was a relief to be taken out of the stressful battle, but difficult in its own way to watch the remaining three party members struggle to take down the golem with Joe and I unable to help them.  Fortunately they still had Corinth to off-tank for them, and it quickly became apparent that he was better at it than I was.  Maybe he shouldgear for tanking instead of damage.

After about twenty seconds of this, Joe was abruptly released from the spell that held him.  I glanced at my own debuffs, and noticed that the chains that were restraining me had a duration of two minutes remaining.  The fight was over before then.  The only remaining surprise was when the boss abruptly leapt at Leanne and attacked her, but she managed to cast her shield on herself in time to absorb the worst of the damage.  She promptly ran to Joe, who reestablished control over the boss.

The chains on me faded immediately when the boss died.  The sigils that had been providing its animating force abruptly went dark, it stopped moving, then it collapsed into a pile of metal.  A moment later, the remaining armor turned into dark mist.  A loot box appeared where its body had been a few seconds later, as did a teleportation circle in the center of the room.

“Annoying,” Joe complained.  “I hate long crowd control abilities.”

“Does anyone like them?” Corinth asked.

“I like [Polymorph],” I admitted.  “Not so much when it’s used on me, though.”

“Let’s see what Are En Gee has for us after that.”

There were four items in the chest, which surprised everyone.  One item Corinth claimed immediately.  It was called [The Buster Sword], and even though it looked like a completely impractical weapon, he insisted upon having it.  Despite the fact that his reward for participating in the battleground was better.

“I don’t need it for the stats,” he explained.  “This is for the transmog!”

The only other person in the party who could even equip the item was Joe, and he seemed to disdain it.  He couldhave used it as a dee pee ess option, since he had selected a one-handed mace for his battleground prize.  But he just shook his head and called Corinth an “Effing Weeb.”

Leanne got another item, a white robe with excellent stats for her.  And another pair of Dexterity boots dropped.  Not the [Faux-Iron Toed Boots] that I’d gotten, but a pair called [Niblers Nimbles], which was actually in the loot table for the final boss of the regular version of this dungeon.  They had effectively the same stats as the pair I had gotten, just an extra point of Endurance, which neither I nor Ike cared about, so the boots went to him.

The final item was [The Golem Crafter’s Coat], and it had me drooling.

“Do you mind if I take this?” I asked my party.  Somewhat unnecessarily, since the only other person who could possibly use it was Leanne, but she gained better stats from the robe she had won earlier.  Nobody objected, so I equipped my new coat immediately.

The Golem Crafter’s Coat

Rare, Requires Level 33

Vitality

8

Endurance

5

Armor

25

Spell Damage

16

Not only did the spellcasting stats help balance out my intelligence with my Dexterity and significantly increase my overall damage, but the clothes themselves were quite stylish.  Primarily black, with blue stripes running from the cuffs of my wrist to the shoulder in a spiral pattern, and three stripes of silver on the front and back.  It wasn’t just a coat, of course, and a matching pair of breeches were included, with silver stripes on my left leg and blue on my right.

They weren’t exactly stylish, according to the current fashion of Yuikonese nobles.  But I liked their appearance, and that was all I really cared about.  And their stats, of course.  Their stats were nice.

With loot distribution taken care of, everyone turned to the teleportation circle in the middle of the room.  I knew from speaking with other Travelers that it wasn’t uncommon for dungeons to offer such egress methods to challengers once they had defeated the final boss.  Was the dungeon trying to trick us into leaving instead of destroying its core?  It was a pretty silly offer to make, and I wasn’t going to fall for--

Corinth walked into the circle before I could say anything, and a prompt appeared.

Teleportation to Mikal’s Room in 9s

“You idiot,” I said.

“It’s not a circle of return, or whatever you call them,” Corinth said.  “Looks too different.  So it was obviously the way forward.”

“You’re still an idiot,” Ike scolded.

The teleportation activated, and we were whisked away.