[D'sP] Two Buffs - Chapter 405

Kelly nods, “I’ve got a spell that should protect against fire magic. I theorize that depending on the enemies personal level and skill level compared against your own personal level, but happening before any resistance skills, the spell should bell curve centered on about 25% reduction at parity.”

Jeremy raises an eyebrow, “That bell curve based on the level comparison or the percentage? I’m assuming the first as the second would be stupid.”

Kelly, “Ah, yeah, it can go as low as zero and as high as complete negation, depending. Though this is based purely on classical fire magic. If someone starts throwing around funky colored flames, be careful until you can test how things match up.”

Kellinger steps forward, “And I have a spell that should stack with that.”

Kelly raises an eyebrow, “I’m pretty certain you can’t stack protections like this. Putting two such buffs on a person is only going to use the most effective buff.”

Kellinger nods, “And so it is a good thing I do not have a buff spell that adds a layer of protection. Rather, instead of a protection spell, I have an actual buff spell.

“You noted how your spell cuts the damage before it even hits a person’s natural resistance? Well, my spell boosts that resistance. The drawback of mine is that it works off of a person’s resistance and so if you have a weakness to fire, it will not help. Good thing none of us are plant-based or similar.”

Jim claps his hands, “Sounds good! Now, I’m hearing a lot about protecting against flames, but how do your spells work on heat?”

Kelly brings her hand up level and waggles it, not really certain. Kellinger, on the other hand smiles, “Why, my spell does wonders for that. If anything, it works even better. You can look at fire magic as a burst of damage all at once, while heat is damage over time.

“Because my spell hooks into natural resistance, the low end gets completely canceled out. Though I will admit, it sounds like Kelly’s spell will work best against the big attacks.”

Kelly sighs, “Don’t sugar coat it. My spell might not even be able to do anything against the heat. The damage being so small, my spell might not even be able to reduce it at all. And honestly? If the heat is bad enough for my spell to be doing something, you aren’t going to survive long, anyway.”

Jim, “Eh, different spells for different occasions. For a big fight, I’d take your spell every time. After all, it sounds like any prevented damage doesn’t even touch us. Whereas, since Kellinger’s spell works off our own resistance, we get to feel every hit. Now, can we keep both of them going for this last bit of the floor?”

Kelly and Kellinger glance at one another and they both shrug. Kelly, “Depends on what we face in there. If we can just focus on keeping them going, I’m sure we could both keep it going all day for our entire group and then some. In the middle of a fight where we will probably have to also throw some spells around? Well, they’re buffs so they won’t instantly flicker out of existence when we turn our attention away.”

Jim runs his hand through his hair in frustration, “It seems we’re still newbs at this kind of thing. We shouldn’t have to stand around like lemons figuring this stuff out in the middle of a delve. This should have been taken care of before we even entered the dungeon.”

Jay shrugs, “Eh, how could we have known we would need fire protection?”

Jim shakes his head, “It isn’t about this specific situation. Rather, we should have been prepared for the more common situations, as well as understanding our limits around them. Fire magic is literally a core part of town at the moment, so of course everyone will have their own way to handle it.

“But all the more, that means we should know our options for it. Though the same should be covered for earth, air, and water. Well, that plus any other common enough situations. I would hate to face some kind of cactus or porcupine monster without a way to blunt piercing attacks. Yet here we stand and I don’t know if we even have that, let alone who to order to get those defenses up when push comes to shove.”

There isn’t really much more to say about the topic and so they finish preparing, cast the buffs, and head towards the ashen valley. Which even with Kellinger’s spell, is still stiflingly hot. Though that seems wrong, as the air temperature doesn’t feel that hot?

That matter is soon put to the side as the first of the resident monsters comes into view. Jim frowns at the ashen bull. “I wonder if the meat is harder to cook?”

Kelly narrows her eyes at him, “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

Jim shrugs, “We have no experience with heavily attuned monster meat. Like, there are the wooden goats, but their flesh is literally wood and so we can’t do anything with it, food wise.”

Kelly points at the ashen bull, “And we don’t know what the case will be with that thing! It looks like it is made of ash so you might still be out of luck.”

At this point, the bull notices them and charges. Except, it was a lone monster that had randomly wandered away from its fellows. Suffice it to say, the monster didn’t survive long.

Jim smiles as he picks up a steak. “Looks like proper meat to me! A bit hot, though. I wonder if you’d even need to cook it?”

Kelly gives him a dirty look. “Do you honestly believe that with magic around, diseases and such can’t adapt to the heat?”

Jim shrugs, “There has to be some kind of limit. Otherwise, everyone would be dead. Though if I had to guess, the stuff like bacteria and viruses at that size and complexity aren’t able to adapt to multiple situations. If anything, cooling this steak down to room temperature would probably be more effective than heating it up.”

Kelly, “That. Might be true. Not to say there are supernatural diseases out there. We certainly have enough myths on the subject.”

Jim nods, “Yep, never said they didn’t. However, there is clearly some sort of inherent limit. Even if that reason might end up being the system.”

Kelly, “I wish that wasn’t so likely.”

Jim scoffs, “We wouldn’t even exist if not for the system. Magic reduced everything to free floating energy without any sort of physical form. If it is also holding back the microscopic world from killing everything, we can just add it to the pile.

“However, I’m sure that stuff like that settles out. After all, clearly there are universes that have magic from the start. There has to be a balance point.”

Jay interrupts, “I think there are more monsters wandering over.”

Jim looks over, “Huh, well, I guess we can gather wool when the wool won’t catch on fire.”

Then the front most cattle all bellow out a cloud of cinders.

Kelly swirls up a water barrier, Kellinger stomps the ground and calls up a rock wall, and the others dash to get behind them as the fiery breath sweeps past them. Of course, the cattle don’t stop, running through the fire and slamming into the two shields. The water barrier splashes over them, but remains standing to keep the remaining fire out.

On the other hand, the rock wall stops the cattle but shatters, allowing the last wisps of fire through. However, it was reduced enough that the two buffs could completely negate any damage, even if some clothes might be a bit singed. Though that might be preferable to having the cattle charge through.

No one got hurt, but they certainly were sent tumbling out of the way. Good thing part of the herd was blocked or there would have been some serious damage. On top of that, with the herd split, the battle dissolved into a chaos less favorable to the cattle.

This doesn’t stop them from breathing fire at every possible moment. The cattle herd soon creates a cloud of cinder-like flames that covers the entire fight. If only they could see through the fire.

Not that Jim has anyone that can see through it either. They do, however, have hops. And so, within moments of the area being fully obscured, the entire team has jumped above the fire and are raining destruction down on the cattle below.

Even the more melee focused fighters have some method of ranged attack. Most not quite as effective, Jay in particular depending on that classic where you swing the weapon and create a flying blade of force. Not that it wasn’t effective. It just had a significant drop off in damage without something to support it.

Jay was working on using Qi to increase said range, but it seemed like you needed to enchant the weapon for it to work. Besides, if you wanted to throw energy attacks around, you’re better off just sending out Qi blasts like some kind of anime. Though making an actual enchantment for this was certainly on the list of things to work out.

Sure, research is pointing towards only one such attack about every five seconds being able to contain the full force of the swing. That just meant that you either focused on melee and fired off a shot whenever it was ready, or settled for clearing chaff once you could attack faster than that. The ability would be useful either way, providing unlimited ranged attacks, even if slow the stronger you got.

For now, Jay can barely get two attacks in while the rest of the group all manage to fire many more. This doesn’t end the fight, though. The ashen cattle didn’t just stand around, waiting to be shot. The absence of enemies quickly alerted them to something being wrong and they charged out of the fire cloud, looking for the party.

Problem was, they didn’t look up. In fact, they had accidentally made it even harder to notice the party above them. The noise and light from the fire cloud masking them. Combined with the fact that the cattle exited the cloud on all sides, left them open.

An opening the party gladly took. Everyone using their own mystical options to get a burst of momentum towards the edge of the cloud as they fell back towards the ground. This got them the drop on an isolated group of cattle, which soon fell to their attacks.

Except even then, the fight was turning out less than easy. Despite out numbering those separated cattle about two to one, it wasn’t an instant success. And it isn’t like the cattle’s fiery breath was completely ineffective. When first being breathed out, the fire was quite strong and could cause serious pain and moderate injury.

This didn’t stop the party and by the time the fire cloud cleared away, their first targets were already dead. Jim went for his bow to handle them at a distance, only to feel the fletching of his arrows had been burnt off. He ignores that and tries, anyway. Then his bow string snaps, having been charred by the fire.

Not that the fight becomes harder because of this. He easily switched to his melee weapons and the fight was soon wrapped up, except no one in the group was happy.

The buffs had kept everyone healthy. Sure, maybe there was some overly red skin and the tips of Kelly’s hair were burnt, but they were perfectly fine to go on. What wasn’t ready? Their gear.

Jim wasn’t the only one with gear looking worse for wear. In particular, the leather armor? Straps had snapped, the clothes underneath blackened, and everything was overall bad.

Jeremy, “Well, I guess this is the end of our current delve.”

Jim sighs, “We’re going to have to figure out a solution for this, especially while we can’t enchant our gear.”

Kelly, “We need to source materials from the deeper floors. All of our leather is from floor six and look at what happened to it. On the other hand, the few items made from deeper drops held up better.”

Jim glances deeper into the ashen cleft. “Well, I know where to get leather for fire resistant gear.”

Tough Trees - Chapter 404

Gah! - Chapter 406