Fey and Leandriel managed to travel to the last cavern of the dungeon floor without (further) incident. Populating the space were level 20 monsters that resembled giant black tortoises, except that their shells were jointed to allow them to curl into a fully-armoured ball. Fey evaluated the tortoises. Although they were thickly armoured by their shells, their heads and legs were vulnerable when they were not curled up. This weakness, plus their slow movement speed, made them good targets for her fighting abilities (or lack thereof).
“Excellent,” Fey said in her best evil villain accent, earning her an odd look from Leandriel (more like a 'you're odd' look). “Are you going to go now?” she asked Leandriel, having worked out why the angel had chosen to bring her to the dungeon. With monsters of all levels, it was a perfect place for them to train separately, together (or is that “together, separately”?).
“It would be rude of me to bring you here, then simply leave you behind.” Leandriel had been planning on spending some time helping Fey adjust to fighting the new monsters before descending to lower floors to train on opponents closer to his own level.
“No, it's fine. You've done me a huge favour (*borderline cheating*) by showing me such a great training spot. You go on ahead, and we can hang out during breaks or something.” When Leandriel made no sign of moving, Fey added, “I won't get mad.”
Leandriel raised his eyebrows at the last sentence, clearly having some experience with the female half of the species in combination with that phrase.
Fey grinned at the angel's skepticism. “And I won't say 'I won't get mad' and then get mad. I'm not a normal girl.” (*understatement of the year*)
Having seen ample evidence of Fey's lack of normality, Leandriel decided to take the elf at her word. Ever since reaching level 90, it took over two full days of non-stop training to gain a single level. He planned on reaching level 100 again by the end of the day, but it would require a lot of extra hours of playing if he spent too much time without training. “Okay, then. I will be on the eleventh floor. Message me if anything happens.”
“Bye.”
Leandriel nodded and descended further into the dungeon. Before he left, he cast Helping Hand on Fey and her pets.
With Leandriel gone, Fey could relax the mental ropes tying up her inner fangirl and focus on fighting. (The inner nine-year-old still needed restraining because she was wearing a cape.) Eyeing the tortoises more carefully (everyone knows the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, right?), Fey noticed that there were two varieties, one with rounded bumps on its shell, and one with short cone-shaped spikes. The ones with bumpy shells looked less (pointy) dangerous, so Fey decided to attack one of those first. She drew her weapons but frowned, looking between the blades and the monster's thick shell. By her guess, as soon as she launched her first attack, it would curl up defensively and she would be unable to do further damage.
Better make the first hit count, then. Thoughtfully, she pulled a furyweed leaf (thornweed is so three chapters ago) from her pouch. “Here Amethyst, eat this.” Fey fed her beloved pet the highly poisonous plant (taken out of context, this sentence would indicate a dangerous level of madness).
“Now, poison slime: furyweed.” Amethyst obediently secreted a layer of furyweed poison. Holding the slime by the bubble, Fey carefully dabbed poison along the flats of her sword and dagger. Since furyweed poison had to enter the body first to work, it seemed logical to combine it with a cutting edge (far more practical than force-feeding it to the monsters). Preparations complete, Fey hid her pets in a safe corner, then focused on a particular bumpy-shelled tortoise. Standing just outside its area of awareness, she charged her sword with Mana Blade, then ran forward and chopped at its head with Vicious Strike.
I wonder why it's called a volly? Fey pondered as she took advantage of the stun to inflict more damage (hint: it's a really bad pun). Even the hide on the volly's head and neck was quite tough, so Fey did not land critical strikes, only flesh wounds that bled sluggishly (tortoise-ly?).
As Fey had predicted, as soon as the stun wore off, the volly curled into an armoured ball, accompanied by the sound of shell grating against shell. The “curl up defensively” part was partially inaccurate, however, as the now-boulder-like creature began to roll towards her, picking up speed as it went (*curl up offensively*).
Uh... Fey began to back up nervously, then jumped sideways as the live boulder, up to her waist in height, crushed its way through where she had been standing (*unexpectedly dangerous*). Despite not having its eyes visible under its shell, the volly appeared to be able to see and track Fey, turning to make another attempt at flattening her.
The next three minutes were spent playing 'don't get run over', which Fey did not particularly enjoy. The volly could build up to quite a speed when going in a straight line, but had very slow acceleration and turning, so Fey eventually settled on jogging in a small circle as the best method to stay alive (and unmaimed). Even at a jog, Fey could calculate that the furyweed poison could inflict a maximum of 900 damage, more than double her own maximum health, so it was only a matter of waiting until the toxin took its toll on the volly.
When the shelled monster finally stopped rolling, uncurling and disintegrating into small black pebbles, Fey was slow to react. Continuing to jog in a circle, she skidded over the pebbles and almost lost her balance. She managed to right herself by reflexively jerking her arms to compensate, but very nearly stabbed herself in the eye (remember, children, running around holding an unsheathed sword is worse than running around with scissors). “Woah.” She slowly sheathed sword and dagger with extra care.
“Phew.” Fey's breathing was slightly deepened from jogging, but she still had plenty of energy left and could maintain the slow pace for quite a while. Taking stock of the situation, she dug through the black pebbles and found a few coins as well as a small round stone.
Analyzing the results of her fight (“fight”), Fey decided that she had a satisfactory strategy for defeating the vollys, and did not bother experimenting with different tactics. Since she thought it was unlikely that her pets' skills would be able to penetrate the volly's shells, Fey sent her mini-army back to (terrorize) the cave spiders. She was finding that having her pets only passively gain half her experience points was not working well, as their lower levels put them in danger against the monsters she fought. “Go train and level up,” she told them, “and don't forget to collect the loot.”
Amethyst sat on Magic, who was sitting on Boris, and the miniature boar trotted off, flanked by three glooms on either side (*travel formation*). Fey grinned and took a snapshot of the almost artistic arrangement as they left, then focused on her own training.
Judging by the speed the rolling volly had displayed, Fey thought she could handle attacking two at once. Drawing just her sword, she used Vicious Strike on one monster, then immediately repeated the attack on another before turning to run and dodge. Avoiding two boulder-monsters coming from different directions was more challenging, but manageable.
Fey's training went smoothly for a time, with her skills and experience steadily increasing.
Fey and Leandriel managed to travel to the last cavern of the dungeon floor without (further) incident. Populating the space were level 20 monsters that resembled giant black tortoises, except that their shells were jointed to allow them to curl into a fully-armoured ball. Fey evaluated the tortoises. Although they were thickly armoured by their shells, their heads and legs were vulnerable when they were not curled up. This weakness, plus their slow movement speed, made them good targets for her fighting abilities (or lack thereof).
“Excellent,” Fey said in her best evil villain accent, earning her an odd look from Leandriel (more like a 'you're odd' look). “Are you going to go now?” she asked Leandriel, having worked out why the angel had chosen to bring her to the dungeon. With monsters of all levels, it was a perfect place for them to train separately, together (or is that “together, separately”?).
“It would be rude of me to bring you here, then simply leave you behind.” Leandriel had been planning on spending some time helping Fey adjust to fighting the new monsters before descending to lower floors to train on opponents closer to his own level.
“No, it's fine. You've done me a huge favour (*borderline cheating*) by showing me such a great training spot. You go on ahead, and we can hang out during breaks or something.” When Leandriel made no sign of moving, Fey added, “I won't get mad.”
Leandriel raised his eyebrows at the last sentence, clearly having some experience with the female half of the species in combination with that phrase.
Fey grinned at the angel's skepticism. “And I won't say 'I won't get mad' and then get mad. I'm not a normal girl.” (*understatement of the year*)
Having seen ample evidence of Fey's lack of normality, Leandriel decided to take the elf at her word. Ever since reaching level 90, it took over two full days of non-stop training to gain a single level. He planned on reaching level 100 again by the end of the day, but it would require a lot of extra hours of playing if he spent too much time without training. “Okay, then. I will be on the eleventh floor. Message me if anything happens.”
“Bye.”
Leandriel nodded and descended further into the dungeon. Before he left, he cast Helping Hand on Fey and her pets.
With Leandriel gone, Fey could relax the mental ropes tying up her inner fangirl and focus on fighting. (The inner nine-year-old still needed restraining because she was wearing a cape.) Eyeing the tortoises more carefully (everyone knows the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, right?), Fey noticed that there were two varieties, one with rounded bumps on its shell, and one with short cone-shaped spikes. The ones with bumpy shells looked less (pointy) dangerous, so Fey decided to attack one of those first. She drew her weapons but frowned, looking between the blades and the monster's thick shell. By her guess, as soon as she launched her first attack, it would curl up defensively and she would be unable to do further damage.
Better make the first hit count, then. Thoughtfully, she pulled a furyweed leaf (thornweed is so three chapters ago) from her pouch. “Here Amethyst, eat this.” Fey fed her beloved pet the highly poisonous plant (taken out of context, this sentence would indicate a dangerous level of madness).
“Now, poison slime: furyweed.” Amethyst obediently secreted a layer of furyweed poison. Holding the slime by the bubble, Fey carefully dabbed poison along the flats of her sword and dagger. Since furyweed poison had to enter the body first to work, it seemed logical to combine it with a cutting edge (far more practical than force-feeding it to the monsters). Preparations complete, Fey hid her pets in a safe corner, then focused on a particular bumpy-shelled tortoise. Standing just outside its area of awareness, she charged her sword with Mana Blade, then ran forward and chopped at its head with Vicious Strike.
I wonder why it's called a volly? Fey pondered as she took advantage of the stun to inflict more damage (hint: it's a really bad pun). Even the hide on the volly's head and neck was quite tough, so Fey did not land critical strikes, only flesh wounds that bled sluggishly (tortoise-ly?).
As Fey had predicted, as soon as the stun wore off, the volly curled into an armoured ball, accompanied by the sound of shell grating against shell. The “curl up defensively” part was partially inaccurate, however, as the now-boulder-like creature began to roll towards her, picking up speed as it went (*curl up offensively*).
Uh... Fey began to back up nervously, then jumped sideways as the live boulder, up to her waist in height, crushed its way through where she had been standing (*unexpectedly dangerous*). Despite not having its eyes visible under its shell, the volly appeared to be able to see and track Fey, turning to make another attempt at flattening her.
The next three minutes were spent playing 'don't get run over', which Fey did not particularly enjoy. The volly could build up to quite a speed when going in a straight line, but had very slow acceleration and turning, so Fey eventually settled on jogging in a small circle as the best method to stay alive (and unmaimed). Even at a jog, Fey could calculate that the furyweed poison could inflict a maximum of 900 damage, more than double her own maximum health, so it was only a matter of waiting until the toxin took its toll on the volly.
When the shelled monster finally stopped rolling, uncurling and disintegrating into small black pebbles, Fey was slow to react. Continuing to jog in a circle, she skidded over the pebbles and almost lost her balance. She managed to right herself by reflexively jerking her arms to compensate, but very nearly stabbed herself in the eye (remember, children, running around holding an unsheathed sword is worse than running around with scissors). “Woah.” She slowly sheathed sword and dagger with extra care.
“Phew.” Fey's breathing was slightly deepened from jogging, but she still had plenty of energy left and could maintain the slow pace for quite a while. Taking stock of the situation, she dug through the black pebbles and found a few coins as well as a small round stone.
Analyzing the results of her fight (“fight”), Fey decided that she had a satisfactory strategy for defeating the vollys, and did not bother experimenting with different tactics. Since she thought it was unlikely that her pets' skills would be able to penetrate the volly's shells, Fey sent her mini-army back to (terrorize) the cave spiders. She was finding that having her pets only passively gain half her experience points was not working well, as their lower levels put them in danger against the monsters she fought. “Go train and level up,” she told them, “and don't forget to collect the loot.”
Amethyst sat on Magic, who was sitting on Boris, and the miniature boar trotted off, flanked by three glooms on either side (*travel formation*). Fey grinned and took a snapshot of the almost artistic arrangement as they left, then focused on her own training.
Judging by the speed the rolling volly had displayed, Fey thought she could handle attacking two at once. Drawing just her sword, she used Vicious Strike on one monster, then immediately repeated the attack on another before turning to run and dodge. Avoiding two boulder-monsters coming from different directions was more challenging, but manageable.
Fey's training went smoothly for a time, with her skills and experience steadily increasing.
