Healer Book 5 -- Chapter 28

Chapter 28

“Let’s get going, then,” Thaden said, waving toward the exit.

He had been up relatively early the next morning, but he took his time and relaxed as much as he could before he did some food shopping, refilling his stored meals in his Inventory and even packing in a bunch extra, as he didn’t know when he would be able to really focus on such mundane tasks in the coming days.  After that, he relaxed in his room before he waited for his new Party to wake up.

The Aelveen didn’t leave their room until after noon, meaning that they were going to get a late start to their Adversary hunt, but the extra time was apparently worth it.  The 3 Wardens and Lyn all appeared to be fully recovered, at least physically as far as he could tell, and were eager to get moving by the time they finally rolled out of bed.    

Along with their rest rejuvenating their bodies, the trio of Aelveen Wardens all seemed to get their confidence back; a positive change had come over them that he hadn’t seen in them before, which was likely because he had first met most of them after they’d already died or had been defeated so badly that they were at a low point in their lives.  While they didn’t swagger out of their Diamond-Ranked room like they thought anyone seeing them should bow down to their obvious superiority, they definitely held themselves more regally than before, walking straight-backed and with a certain grace to their walk that was missing the day before.

That was until they saw him waiting for them outside their door, and they practically screeched to a halt and fell all over themselves.  It wasn’t because he surprised them or that they were afraid he might kill them again; instead, it was a simple matter of the changes that he’d made the night before.

“What— How?” Fer had spluttered, her wide eyes staring at him as if he was some sort of freak of nature.  Which, I suppose, I am.

Thaden tried to keep as innocent of a face as possible, but wasn’t sure if he succeeded.  “What are you talking about?”

“She’s talking about how impossibly more powerful you are today than you were yesterday,” Tac said, after getting control of his own reaction to Thaden’s presence.  “Yesterday, the strength we could all feel in you was obvious enough that I was worried Ghareta and the other Wardens would notice it, but I think with us being there, it sort of camouflaged your power.  Now, though…” he said, shaking his head, “there’s not hiding you.  You’re like a flaming beacon in the middle of a dark night; anyone with the sensitivity to powerful energy will be able to feel it from miles away.”

Hmm… that’s not good.  I guess that’s the drawback about getting stronger.

There was nothing he could really do about it, though, so he just shrugged and grinned.  A few minutes later, they were exiting the city gate and were ready to finally get started with the next part of their plan.

Tac led the way, which was perfectly fine with him, as he and the other Aelveen had the map of the Region that they were responsible for after speaking with the Charee Wardens, so they seemed to know what they were doing.  As far as Thaden was concerned, he was just along for the ride and would participate when they got to where they were going; what exactly that “participation” entailed was still up in the air right now, as they hadn’t had a chance to talk about it. 

Speaking of up in the air, Thaden felt the concentration of Adversarial energy shortly after the Aelveen did, and they descended from the sky only about 30 minutes after they left Darkwood Vale.  Landing in a narrow, flower-filled valley in between two relatively short hills, where a dungeon entrance was situated at the start of the valley, they arrived just moments before a large Raid Party of what appeared to be about 200 Contenders heading there with the intention of entering.

“Hey!  We were here first; no cutting in line!” the lead Contender said, a Level 178, heavily-armored Fighter named Liam.  Thaden thought he heard a slight British accent behind his words, but it was so hard to tell with how everything was translated by the System in this world.

Fer’la’vina stepped forward, throwing back the hood on her cloak, giving the Human a bright smile that had the entire Raid Party stopping in their tracks.  It wasn’t just her gorgeous Elvish appearance that made them pull up short, but because Fer revealed her nametag to them – and they saw that she was nearly 400 Levels higher than any of them.  “I apologize for the inconvenience, but we need to perform a routine inspection of this dungeon first to ensure it is working properly.  We shouldn’t be too long, if everything checks out alright.”

Her words were very professional, but Thaden could also sort of feel the Warden’s Personality coming into play, encouraging those listening to believe her.  It didn’t affect Thaden, however, as his Personality stat was likely higher than hers, but he could still feel it, nonetheless. 

“Oh, uh, okay,” Liam replied, stumbling over his words.  As if gathering up the courage to speak again, he cleared his throat and stood up and pushed his chest forward, as if he was some sort of peacock showing off his wares.  “Does this, uh, have anything to do with the missing Raid Parties and strange things happening in the dungeons?” he asked.

Fer nodded with another smile, though Thaden could see that it was forced.  “It does.  We’re here to help resolve some of those issues, and we believe we’ve identified the problem.  We have multiple teams sent by the System working on it, so be patient and we’ll have you up and running before you know it.”

The Omenic Drifter just stared at the Aelveen for a moment, doing his darnedest to keep from busting out laughing.  She sounded so much like a phone-based Customer Service Representative back home on Earth that it was both shocking and hilarious, and he eventually had to turn away before he lost it completely.  Fortunately, it didn’t seem to matter at all what exactly she said to the Raid Party of Contenders, because they reacted positively to her orders to wait as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

He remembered having a few hundred points in Personality back when he was venturing all over the Region looking for Anchor Dungeons, and how it had helped to ease the population that may have been alarmed at his presence; he hadn’t really used it all that much since then, other than perhaps as intimidation when he met the Aelveen.  Even that wasn’t completely successful because the Aelveen seemed to have naturally high Personality stats, but now he was able to see it at work.

As the Raid Party backed up, settling down in one of the roped-off sections where they appeared ready to wait for hours just because the nice Elf told them to, he joined the others near the entrance.

“What’s the plan?  How do you normally handle these types of things?” he asked quietly, as he didn’t necessarily want the other Contenders to hear them, even if they should be far out of earshot by that point.

“Well, normally, which isn’t that normal because in all the time that I’ve been a Warden, this is the first time an attack by the Adversary has managed to infiltrate a developmental world, we’ve been simply walking inside of the dungeon, making our way to the Adversarial entity, and eliminating it.  Of course, every dungeon before the one we met you only had monsters that were equivalent in Level to their standard range, which was typically anywhere between 200 to the mid-300s, so it hasn’t really been an issue before this.”

“I guess that I’m just special, then?” Thaden joked, but the others didn’t seem to be in a joking mood. 

Tac pointed at him.  “You have to enter last, because my hope is that with us entering first, whatever it was that happened in the last dungeon doesn’t occur.  Being trapped in the dungeon with the only escape being the exit, as well as being denied access to our Inventories, is had never affected us before, so I can only assume it has something to do with you.”

Thaden thought that was a reasonable assumption, given how the monsters of the Adversary he’d encountered seemed to react to his simple presence in the dungeon.

“Sounds like a plan.  Though, are you sure you don’t want me to go in alone and take care of it?  It’ll go much faster—”

Tac held his hand up to stop him.  “No.  While we largely believe that you aren’t deliberately working against the System, we need to verify that you aren’t doing something nefarious with the monsters found inside of these dungeons.  While the concentrations of Adversarial energy certainly disappeared after you left the dungeons, we don’t have visual confirmation that the entities were destroyed.”

Thaden thought he got it.  Trust, yet verify; they somewhat trusted him that he was actually doing good, but they needed it verified without a shadow of a doubt.  He’d probably do the same thing, once he thought about it.

“Fair enough, I suppose.  Do you want me to lead the way and kill everything on my way to the end, or—?” he further asked, trying to figure out his role here.

The Aelveen Party Leader shook his head.  “No.  At least for the first few of these, we need to be the ones to eliminate all the threats inside.  We would appreciate it if you acted as a Support Class for us… that is, if you can still do that?”

He just nodded with another grin.  Oh, yes, I can certainly do that.

Acting as Support rather than the main damage-dealer would certainly take longer, but as this was the Aelveen Warder’s show, he wasn’t going to complain.  Of course, if they started showing signs that they weren’t up to handling whatever they found in there, he would probably insist that they let him start wiping out the enemy at a rapid pace.

With another look between the Aelveen, Tac headed into the entrance first after touching the outside of it for a few seconds, and the others followed after him almost immediately.  He gave them a few seconds before he followed with Sadia going first, and soon enough he found himself in a dungeon.

You have entered Va113y 0f L0s7 S0ul5 Intermediate Raid Dungeon (Medial Difficulty)!

The Va113y 0f L0s7 S0ul5 Intermediate Raid Dungeon

Current Difficulty: Minimal   Medial   Maximal

Maximum Raid Party Size: 150

Recommended Raid Party Levels: 220 – 240

Barely looking around at the steep cliffs to either side of what appeared to be a long, dark canyon ahead of them, he turned to Tac.  “Medial?  I thought all these things were in the Maximal difficulty?”

“Not necessarily.  They seem to want to hide in different difficulties, which I can check before we enter so as not to waste time.”

I did not know that.  Then again, the Soul Harvester was in a Minimal difficulty Intermediate Dungeon, so I suppose that could be accurate.

“It’s confirmed now,” Che said with a slight hint of disgust in her voice.

Thaden looked at her in confusion.  “What is?”

“That you’re bad luck,” she accused.  “We checked just before you entered and we had access to our Inventories and Character Reports, and the entrance was still there; as soon as you entered, it disappeared and our access is gone.”

“Huh.  Whoops.”

The confirmation didn’t really affect what they had to do.  It just made it more difficult to know what they would be up against in these dungeons and being able to change things on the fly would be harder – but Thaden was experienced enough that he didn’t really worry about it. 

“Well, there’s no helping it now, so we should probably get moving,” Tac said, before turning toward the dungeon. 

Thaden and Sadia immediately started protecting the entire Party, rapidly casting Defensive spells that would protect them from just about anything they might encounter.  Most of the spells were the same ones that they used when he went solo, and as a result, they were buffed up to the gills and were unlikely to die unless Thaden died first.  While that happening wasn’t impossible, he had severe doubts that it would happen in this dungeon.

“What are all of these spells you cast on us?” Tac asked, before they started moving. 

Thaden was about to tell him to check his Active Effects list, before he remembered that it wasn’t available to pull up.  Therefore, he took about a minute to describe each spell, starting with Damage Shield and Protective Guards before moving through the various Reserved spells he had active such as Cleansing Aura and Aura of the Sentinel, and ending with the replenishment and Health-specific ones such as Mana Transformation – which they could still convert Mana into a stat of their choice despite not having access to their Character Reports – and Overheal, which increased their Health.  He also gave them an overview of his healing spells and their effects, before moving to a more sensitive topic.

“…and then there’s my Class traits.  It’s a Unique Class—”

“Of course it is,” Che muttered, but Thaden ignored her.

“—and one of those traits is that all damage done to all targets, including to yourselves, is increased by 300% if within 300 feet of me.  Also—”

“WHAT?!  How—?” Che interrupted again, but Thaden overtalked her.

“—while it shouldn’t matter here, there is also a 1% chance that any single-target spell or ability used upon a target will instantly kill them.  Fortunately for you, it only affects targets that are 60 or more Levels higher than my current Level, so you should all be fine if you were to cast something upon each other, or if I cast something upon you.  But if you cast a single-target spell or use a single-target ability against a monster or a person that is Level 509 or lower, other than myself, as I’m immune to the effect, then you have a 1% chance to instantly kill them.

“In addition, while it probably doesn’t matter to you, all rewards you might earn from killing monsters, completing Quests, or earning Achievements have a chance to be eliminated entirely, stay the same, or double altogether.  Any questions?”

They were silent for a moment, before Che turned away, disgusted, while the other three just stared at him.  “I… I can’t even cope with this.  I think I’ll just ignore most of what you just said; let’s go, Tac,” Fer said, before dragging the Party Leader away.  Lyn stared at him a few more seconds before joining the others, but there was something back in her eyes that he saw when he first met her – and it made him uncomfortable.

Starry-eyed hero worship was the last thing he wanted or needed right now.

The dungeon itself, when they finally started moving through it, was relatively unremarkable – especially as the lizard-like monsters inside were all Level 220 and rather weak.  The only sign that he could see that they were in any way influenced by the Adversary was the way they seemed to grow and shrink abnormally, as if someone had a “Size” slider and was constantly changing it at their whim – but it didn’t make them noticeably more difficult.

And that was because the Aelveen, despite their relatively poor showing in the previous dungeon, were strong and definitely worthy of their positions.  Without the need to worry about defending themselves, and with constant healing and Mana replenishment through Rejuvenation, their speed and massive damage output swept through the monsters pretty much as fast as Thaden could achieve.  Granted, these things were largely around 300 Levels lower than them, so it wasn’t really a contest, but he could certainly see more than a hint of how strong they were.

Thaden knew he would be getting PICK from them despite their low Level, thanks to his Unkillable II Achievement, but it wouldn’t be much.  But because of the weak monsters and no great need for him to be decked-out with the best equipment, he wanted to start wearing his Growth items to start Leveling them up.  Unfortunately, because he was locked-out of his Inventory, he couldn’t access them right now, so his idea of taking advantage of the current situation died before it could come to fruition.  In the future, he would have to change his equipment before he entered the dungeon, especially if it continued to block access to his Inventory, but that also came with certain dangers in an of itself.  It was too hard to predict if the dungeon was going to be easy or not before he arrived, so he might be put in a position where he would be slightly handicapped if he was forced to fight with weak equipment. 

Then again, my base stats are high enough right now that there isn’t too much that worries me.

Case in point, when they made it to the end of the dungeon, despite the rest of the monsters being around Level 220 to 240, the Nexus Corrupter they encountered was Level 550.  With proper preparation before they got into it, the Aelveen managed to take it out after about 5 minutes of dodging attacks and inflicting as much damage as they could, but it would’ve been even more of a challenge if his equipment had been weak.

“I think I need to solo some more dungeons on my own in between these ones,” he said in an aside to Sadia once they managed to escape through the dungeon exit before it collapsed around them.  Overall, it had only taken a little over an hour to get through the entire dungeon and take out the Nexus Corrupter, and the Aelveen were currently talking to the Contenders who were still waiting patiently for their opportunity to go inside.  Thaden judged that it would probably be a few hours before the dungeon reset itself after whatever damage the Nexus Corrupter had caused, but it appeared as though the Contenders were eager to wait – especially after the magical “Elves” asked them to. 

“Probably a good idea.  Too much of a risk, otherwise.  It’s a shame you can’t do The Mines again; that would certainly boost their Levels quickly.”

He whipped his head toward her.  “Wait, what?  I can’t?”

“You didn’t read the notification you got in there fully, did you?”  

Unsure what she was talking about, he quickly pulled up his message feed, seeing that he got a little over 50,000 PICK from this last dungeon, almost all of it from the Nexus Corrupter – which was less than usual because he was in a Party – and scrolled up to the notifications regarding his results of the Endless Onslaught Challenge.  Sure enough, once he looked past the message saying that he was getting his rewards, as it was all he was concerned about at the time, he found what she was talking about.

Note: Once the highest Monster Value Tier has been reached by an individual, The Mines of Khanordun will no longer be accessible to them

“Well, that’s just dumb.” 

“Make sense, though, when you think about it,” Sadia responded.  “Those who have reached the highest Tier have already proven that they exceed its Challenge, and therefore are beyond what training it can provide.  One could argue that pushing yourself further and further might be beneficial for development, but Tarth is about advancing to the next Challenge, and the next one after that; farming PICK by rerunning one dungeon over and over, especially once its been ‘mastered’ isn’t necessarily good for the Contender in the long run.”

“It’s still dumb.”

The giant squirrel by his side just chuckled and shook her head. 

“I guess I’ll have to find some other dungeons that would work just as well,” he said, hoping that he could get started on that within the next day.  He was eager to Level those items up so that he could start wearing them while eradicating Adversarial monsters.

Or, he could take a risk and attempt to do it during one of these hunts, as that was sure to Level them up decently well.  It was just getting over that initial hurdle that was his only concern; he would have to weigh the dangers and the benefits before he attempted such a thing.  It wasn’t that he was necessarily worried for his own safety, but the last thing he wanted to happen was the Aelveen were killed again because he wasn’t strong enough to protect them; the risk of them being wiped from existence still resonated in the back of his mind, and losing them permanently after he promised to help them would weigh on his conscience more than a little bit.

Whatever he decided to do, he would have to figure it out soon, because it looked like it was just about time to move on to the next… and the next after that… and the next one after that.