Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 21

Chapter 21

“Are you ready for this?”

Thaden nodded, excited to finally get it done.  “More than ready.  It feels like I’ve been waiting for months.”  He stopped for a moment, halting his steps that would carry him into the dungeon entrance after the rest of the Raid Party, as he realized something.  I guess it has been months, hasn’t it?  Of course, a large chunk of that time I was stuck at the bottom of the Ragewater Sea, but that doesn’t mean that time didn’t pass for me.

Shaking his head, he followed the others inside as Corinna beckoned to him.  A sense of relief infused him as he passed through the wavy plane marking the transition between the outside world and the dungeon.  It wasn’t because he was going to get his Evolution Assignment completed after all this time; while that was something he’d been looking forward to for a while, it wasn’t what he was relieved about.  Instead, it was because he wasn’t the Raid Leader for this Intermediate dungeon delve, which was different from his experience over the past few days.

You have entered the Descent into Darkness Intermediate Raid Dungeon (Minimal Difficulty)!

Descent into Darkness Intermediate Raid Dungeon

Current Difficulty: Minimal   Medial   Maximal

Maximum Raid Party Size: 100

Recommended Raid Party Levels: 160 - 170

The Descent of Darkness dungeon was the only Level 160+ Intermediate dungeon near the city of Darkwood Vale; there were others a bit further away, of course, but this one was what the top Raid Party in Guilded Glory had been actively attempting over the last week, even before Thaden showed up, and they had yet to finish it.  The highest Level in the Raid Party, aside from the Solitary Shaman and Corinna, was only a recent Level 170, who was #28 on the Individual Performance Ranking list.  Over the last few days, Thaden had come to find out that Guild Glory had a lot of money and business dealings as well as the largest number of members, but they didn’t have many of the most powerful Contenders in Tarth.  In fact, the majority of the members of this particular Raid Party had an average Level of 164, with a few standouts like the new Level 170 – and Corinna, of course. 

The new #2 on the Individual Rankings, thanks to participating in all of the Intermediate dungeon Raids that Thaden went on, as well as the massive PICK windfall from their first Raid at The Ranch, had shot her all the way up to 179 – 6 Levels above the #3 Contender who was part of another Guild.  Most of those that had participated in his Raids up until this point had been a lot lower-Level to start with, though they had all gained something like 10 Levels after participating with him, and the core group that stuck with him through the 7 dungeons they completed after that first – well, they had all gained another 4 Levels.

Looking around after he walked inside the dungeon, he discovered that it was exactly as had been described to him.  A long, dark tunnel extended for approximately 500 feet in front of him, with the width of it only being about 10 feet.  It wasn’t exactly crowded, but with 100 people packed inside the tunnel, it certainly felt like it.  Fortunately, there were dim magical lights along the tunnel ceiling every 50 feet, so it wasn’t entirely dark, which allowed him to see that the walls of the tunnel looked just like someone had formed it by hand; toolmarks along the rough interior of the tunnel along with chunks missing here and there gave the impression that a gang of miners had chiseled their way further into the mountain where the dungeon was located on the outside.

Bringing up the rear, he followed everyone in the Raid Party as they ventured down the tunnel, their voices and the sound of armor banging around as the Fighters moved was loud in the confines of the passageway, but he blocked it out automatically.  Corinna moved away from him as she headed toward the front, as she was one of the frontline defenders, leaving those who were more vulnerable near the back.  Not that it would matter all that much in a moment, because it wasn’t long before the tunnel opened into a large, circular, hollow space approximately 300 feet wide, which had a massive in the center that took up approximately two-thirds of the floorspace.  A ring of rough stone flooring circled the hole, allowing those coming in to spread out onto either side of it, while Rachel – the Guild Leader, who was typically a part of this particular Raid Party – stood in front of a large metal lever connected to the floor.  When everyone was inside, including Thaden at the back, he joined the rest as they spread out around the central hole, and he looked down below to see nothing but complete darkness. 

“Anyone not ready?” she asked, and she didn’t have to shout as everyone had stopped moving and talking by that point.  When no one said anything, the Guild Leader gripped the lever and pushed on it with a good portion of her strength; it finally gave way with a squeal of metal on metal, before it clicked into place.

The sound of machinery whirling echoed around the room, which was quickly joined by the smooth clink-clink-clink of multiple chains moving through sets of gears.  From the ceiling, which was relatively dark because the scattered dim lights set up around the room didn’t reach that far, a 200-foot wide stone platform descended at a steady pace, moving at about 3 feet every second.  As he watched it come down in the dim illumination of the dungeon’s lights, he could see enormous metal chains connected to it in 8 equidistant anchoring points, which kept it completely steady as it descended.

Before he knew it, the stone platform was nearly at their level, and he prepared himself along with everyone else.  It was only when it was close enough to see it compared to the deep, rough-hewn hole ahead of him that he realized that it was just barely smaller than the hole; in other words, it would be a tight fit. 

When it was level with the ring around the hole, everyone stepped forward in unison, transferring to the descending platform.  It didn’t take long to leave the entrance behind, and Thaden looked up to see what illumination there had been was already fading as they dropped at a steady pace down the deep, vertical mine shaft.  At that point, the only light came from the glow of many of the Raid Party’s magical equipment, including his own.

That only lasted for a few more seconds, however, as one of the Mages began to cast a multitude of Light Orbs, attaching them to the platform so that they wouldn’t be left behind as they continued to descend. 

“Positions, everyone!  You know the drill, so get moving!” Rachel shouted, and everyone moved to get into position, including Thaden, who rapidly walked toward the middle of the platform along with the Mages, Control, and other Support Classes, while the Fighters and Scouts were arranged around the perimeter in small groups.

As he glanced around, the Solitary Shaman realized that not only was this the first time he’d been in a real Raid Party with a diverse collection of Classes, but it was also the first party he’d participated in that had other Support Classes.  Including himself, there were only 10 Support, with 15 Control, 20 Mages, 25 Scouts, and 30 Fighters.  This seemed to be the pretty close to the standard configuration of high-Level Raid Parties that most Guilds utilized, with small differences in quantity when needs dictated.  The distribution of Classes wasn’t exactly by choice, though, but by necessity; there were simply more Fighters than Scouts, more Scouts than Mages, and so on – with Support having the least number of Contenders who chose to be that Class. 

If what he’d seen and heard was correct, then having 10 Support Classes in a Raid Party was actually rare, and typically only reserved for what could be considered the flagship of Raid Parties, such as this one, as these were the ones that were responsible for delving through new and higher-Level Intermediate dungeons first.  Most other Raid Parties only had a few Support Classes that were able to join them; if they were lucky, they would have 3 or 4, but most only had 1 or 2. 

Thaden had already prepared himself before entering the dungeon, as well as everyone else in the Raid; they all had his buffs that he was able to impart, which mainly amounted to increases to their stats because of his Emboldened Leadership Competency, and a highly inflated Health pool.  But now that they were inside, there were a few other things he could do, as Sadia appeared next to him along with his Incarnation of Protection.  The two of them garnered some looks from the majority of the Raid Party, as no one but Corinna had seen them active, but they had all at least been warned beforehand. 

After they were present, he and Sadia cast a few Guardian Totems, which extended to cover the entirety of the platform, including everyone in their range. 

But they stopped at 8 Totems total, not going any further than that.

Why would they do that, when they could easily start pumping out dozens of them even before the first monsters appeared?  Because of something in his message feed that he discovered after reviewing everything later that night following the test dungeon at The Ranch.

ERRORinvulnerability threshold reached_altering WAVE parameters_

Initializing appropriate equalization responseapplying WAVE variation_

It was yet another ERROR that the Assimilation System acknowledged, but this time it wasn’t entirely focused on himself.  While Thaden had clearly been “invulnerable” many times in the past, especially with his channeled Fields that he no longer had access to, he could only assume that the System’s blind spot when it came to him didn’t trigger any ERRORs; the same couldn’t be said for others, however, and his creation of so many Guardian Totems, which essentially ensured that his Raid Party was essentially invulnerable to any type of damage, had obviously crossed some sort of “threshold” that he didn’t know about.

As a result, the dungeon had initiated a variation, which had been nearly disastrous.  Not wanting to gain the attention of the System too much, as that didn’t always work out for him when it happened in the past, he and Sadia had agreed to keep the “invulnerability” to a minimum – or at least under 200,000 damage mitigation.  While it wasn’t obvious what the threshold they had crossed had been, they thought that this number was fairly safe – and so it had proven when they tried it during the subsequent Raids.  The members of his Party were still greatly protected, of course, but not to the point where they would need to have a Boss monster chewing on them for hours to get through millions of points of damage mitigation.

While it might’ve been disappointing for those who joined him not to see another variation in a dungeon, it had been a relief for Thaden.  For all he knew, the System could learn from what had happened during The Ranch and improve upon a variation, making it even more dangerous than the last one.  That was something he’d like to avoid if he could do something about it.

Which was why they stopped at a total of 8 Totems.  While they did their thing, providing a chunk of damage mitigation to everyone every 5 seconds, the two of them refreshed some of the other protective he had cast upon the others in the Raid Party, while the other Support Classes did some of the same.  It was interesting to see them at work, as it was the first time seriously participating in an upcoming fight with not just another Support, but 9 other Supports, and he was slightly surprised to find that they weren’t all simply different types of healers – though most of them were.  There weren’t any Lifewardens like he had been, but there were 3 Master Healers, which was the evolved form of an Assistant Healer and then an Experienced Healer, as well as a trio of Barrier Experts; the former essentially healed really well, with the majority of their focus on Support spells with only a smattering of Defensive spells for protection, while the latter was essentially the opposite.  The Barrier Expert could heal, of course, but they had really strong protective spells, some of which could rival or even exceed Thaden’s own – if they were at a high enough strength.

But there were also three other Supports that weren’t focused on either healing or protection.  The first was called a Boosting Specialist, and their main focus was to temporarily increase the stats and abilities of those in the Raid Party.  They could heal and protect, but at minor level, as their major benefits came in the form of spells to increase one’s Physicality or, for example, their casting speed.  They were like having an extra piece or two of equipment in spell form, with the added bonus being that they could also heal and protect someone to a less extent.

After that was another hybrid-type Class, called an Auramancer.  Instead of single-cast spells, every single spell that the woman possessed was an aura, which not only healed members of the Party, but could also increase their Mana regeneration, provide a small amount of protection to allies within range of the aura, and even boost stats – though everything was to a lesser extent than ones specializing in other areas.  The biggest advantage the Auramancer had was that each Aura was a Reserved spell, meaning that they didn’t have to worry about running out of Mana; that was also a disadvantage, though, because since everything was Reserved and affected a wide area, there were no single target spells and there was a limited number of spells they could keep active simultaneously.

Lastly, there was a strange Class that couldn’t heal anyone at all called an Enhancer.  Instead of directly healing, protecting, or boosting stats, they had spells that enhanced other people and made them even more deadly.  This could range from spells that increased the damage done by weapons or spells, to adding a reciprocal damage effect to a Fighter that dealt an equal amount of damage back to the attacker, to a spell-doubling effect that had a high chance of doubling any spell cast by the target of the enhancement.  The effects were incredible, of course, but there was a limit to how many could be active at one time amongst a number of targets; while they weren’t Reserved spell like the Auramancer, they apparently required a certain amount of ongoing focus to maintain, and the Enhancer could only keep a total of 14 going at one time.

So, the Support Classes that weren’t straight-up healers finished their preparations, selecting those who would receive their protections, boosts, or enhancements; thankfully, the protections that were added were different from Thaden’s, so that they weren’t overridden or conflicted with them, so many along the front lines were even more protected than before.

When everyone was as prepared as could be, the Solitary Shaman looked toward the center where Rachel was watching calmly as the walls of the deep pit rose up around them all, one hand resting lightly on a lever that was installed in the middle of the flat stone platform.  It was similar to the one she had thrown at the top, but he had been told that this one did just the opposite; instead of moving the platform down, it would reverse their direction and bring them up.  Apparently, that was the only thing it did, as it didn’t even stop the platform’s descent or anything, like one might think it would do – because it didn’t stop for anything.  Either they all rode it to the very bottom of the shaft they were in, or they could throw the lever to let them escape; there was also no going back once they decided to leave, as it would only rise to the very top and would pause at the ring of stone at the entrance.  Nothing but leaving and coming back when the cooldown in visiting the dungeon was up would allow the platform to descend again.

Something about the walls around them must’ve changed, or the Guild Leader was simply perceptive, because she suddenly shouted, “Get ready!  Attack incoming in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…!”

Like everyone else, Thaden braced himself for the first assault of monsters on their descent into the darkness below.