DD 301 Ch 12

"Are you sure you're ready?" Baloo asked, standing with his four other party mates.

"Yeah, what's the worst that could happen?" I asked, pulling my two swords out of my CID. "I need revived?" My own party squared up behind me. "Besides, I don't know too many people that would be friendly enough to show me how they fight."

Baloo shrugged. "It is no mystery. However, learning to counter the Whaleryn would be much harder than I expect you to imagine right now." He looked back at his party, who gave him a nod. "We shall begin."

A moment later, he let loose the anchor chain. It cascaded down to his feet as he began spinning the anchor to his side with only a small portion of chain attached to it from his hand.

Instantly he had it spinning fast enough that it was a blur beating out rapid thumps in the air and quickly increasing in speed.

Curiosity aside, I took the exercise seriously as a chance to train, activating [Sprint] and rushing towards Baloo. Clearly, he was the biggest threat along with the other Whaleryn who began to spin his own anchor.

Yet the second I rushed in, Misha matched me using her own ability to speed up.

She slammed her foot down hard enough on the ground that the soil underneath my feet quaked and rippled out. It wasn't dissimilar to my own earth stomp, though it was far larger and rocks poked out in haphazard directions.

I stumbled over the rocks but caught my footing easily enough, continuing my charge towards Baloo. At this point he’d shifted the spinning anchor to be above his head, slowly letting out more of the anchor chain as it expanded.

Misha moved in step, working to stop me from reaching him. She spun her whale tail around to try and slap me away, but I blocked her tail with my blades, cutting her briefly. Though it was clear she was tough and the cuts would do little to sway her.

As I recovered, Baloo had released even more of the chain. The anchor was spinning in wider and wider circles around him. Misha had held me off long enough, and Baloo had gotten considerable speed going on the other side of the fight.

Des and Penny were being blocked as well by the other two of what they would call the pillars of their group. It was an interesting formation, but all I had to do was break through it.

Misha shouted something in their native tongue, only for Baloo to release a large amount of his chain, the anchor coming out past both of us, this time in a wide, sweeping arc.

Rather than run away, knowing he could release more of the chain at any moment, I rushed inside the danger of the massive spinning anchor. Getting hit by that chain would hurt, but it was nothing compared to the business end of that anchor.

"Wrong move," Misha advised.

The anchor moved with tremendous force behind it, and I was well inside its range. Rather than stop me, Misha punched the chain as it came past her, causing it to bend and whip around her. All of that momentum that had been going in a wider arc was suddenly contained in something much smaller, as it swished back around with more speed than I was prepared to handle.

I threw up [Elemental Shield] before the anchor smashed into me, shattering the shield as well as my arms.

It felt like I had just been run over by a train, only for the anchor to snap back out to its full length and continue spinning overhead as I rolled along the ground to avoid getting caught up in the chain.

Before I could react, Misha punched the chain again.

I now understood how this attack style worked and attempted to react accordingly. This time, I dodged the anchor and the second pass.

But Misha punched the chain a third time before using her body to alter its direction while simultaneously increasing its speed.

I suddenly realized why this method of attack was so terrifying, leading to them structuring their dungeon parties around the entire concept.

"Do you understand now?" Misha asked as the anchor spun back around to me after the third dodge. Each time she altered the direction closer to the anchor itself the speed increased, until I was forced to confront the anchor again.

Felin used a wall of ice to prevent my arms from being broken again. I was still recovering from the first hits and jumped with the strike to lessen the blow.

The anchor was a particularly brutal attack, yet at the same time, it was quite simple. Baloo and the other person wielding the anchor threw as much of their strength behind the swings as possible. Then the pillars would redirect that strength while keeping their opponents away from those wielding the anchor.

The radius in which they were spinning the anchor became a field of death. Every time they changed the anchor's direction, it only grew faster. Now I understood both why they were so proud of the attack style and why it was so dangerous. 

The chance to fight against it and practice wasn't going to come again, no matter how much I wished for it. This was an invaluable opportunity for me, and I needed to try a few more strategies before they stopped. Understanding how this anchor moved was important, but so were other general understandings that I could glean from the situation.

“Thanks for the lesson, but I still have much to learn.” I charged back in as Misha manipulated the chain, swinging it at me like a blunt yet equally lethal scythe. Now that I understood how this worked, I thought I could dodge through with a little practice.

Misha cracked the earth with another step before she flicked stones up into the air and spun around, her tail crushing the pieces of stone and sending sharp fragments showering down on me.

I moved to dodge them, only to realize she had given me one of two options: take the stones or the anchor. I gritted my teeth and braced myself.

The second I shielded my face and the rocks stabbed into me, I knew that I’d underestimated them. Because they had looked physical, I had blocked them like a physical attack rather than using absorb.

It became apparent they were a spell a moment later as every spot that had received a shard grew stiff and my skin turned patchy and gray. 

"Sorry about this," Misha said, punching the chain and diverting the anchor back towards me. It slammed into me with a force that drove everything from my lungs, crushed my chest, and lifted me high into the air.

But at least I wasn't dead. 

As I flew into the air, my breathing stopped, I realized death might not be far away. 

Baloo leaned backwards and lifted the chain’s next rotation higher into the air. Part of me was praying what I thought was about to happen didn't come. Yet, I knew it was in vain.

And any last hope went away as Misha jumped up and spun, slamming her tail into the chain again.

This time, the anchor came flying down at me like an executioner's axe ready to finish the job. It drove me down into the ground and that was the last thing I remembered before I gasped, breathing in fresh air as I was revived. 

Misha stood over me. "So how was it, your first experience fighting a Whaleryn?" 

"Tougher than I imagined," I groaned and sat up. The rest of my class had watched the fight.

Helen crossed her arms. "I could have done better," she said with a judgmental look. 

"Sure you could have." I waved dismissively at her. "Next time, we'll let you volunteer then." 

"No hard feelings?" Misha asked with big, wide eyes. 

"Yeah, no hard feelings. I'm happy I had a chance to fight a Whaleryn for a practice run before the real thing." That had certainly been informative. A small game of chess played out in my mind now that I knew how it would go.

My first thought was to focus on controlling the anchors. Perhaps Penny and Felin could do that. Then myself and Des would need to try and strike through them to the anchors. Of course, if I had thought of that so quickly, then they likely already had a countermeasure themselves.

"You'd have to do something pretty bad to fight one of us for real. We are mostly a peaceful people," Baloo spoke up from the side. 

"Yeah, a peaceful people that hit like wrecking balls." I glanced at the anchor with a new appreciation. "Your fighting is very interesting. You're all incredibly specialized in your stats, if I had to guess. Anchors focus entirely on strength?" 

"You would be correct," Baloo said and as he moved he reminded me of those lifters that focused entirely on strength. They had quite a bit of fat on them to sustain their muscle, "with just enough stamina to keep me on my feet, should the pillars not protect me suitably." 

And I glanced over at Misha, "And I didn't see you deal much in the way of damage to me. Your entire focus was on controlling the battlefield, both me and the anchor." 

"Correct," Misha nodded. "I also have a small heal, one that I bought rather than receive from my class. The rest of the skills that I regularly use are in the same vein of protecting myself and hampering you." 

I continued to nod along, the theory behind their strategy was very interesting. I didn't have any actual application for our own party though. We were all, at least compared to the Whaleryn, generalists, having a fair balance of our stats and skills.

And that wasn't going to change anytime soon, even if I thought the Whaleryn were impressive. They had simply started the dungeon and built their team from a very different perspective than mine.

"Do you have any damage?" I asked Misha. 

"Of course I have some damage." She rolled her eyes. "I have to have enough strength to move the chain and enough speed to keep up with whoever I'm after. If you put enough speed and strength together, of course, you can crush anything." To punctuate that statement, she slammed her whale tail on the ground. 

"Yes, I'm sure you're strong enough," Des said.

I glanced over at her. "How did you fare in all of that fighting?” The fight had been intense enough that I hadn’t pulled my eyes away from the anchor for very long. 

Des hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "Penny got her skull caved in," she said. “I held up my hands in surrender after that.”

"Ah, so about the same." I offered.

"Oh, Penny's death was far less spectacular than yours. I had stopped in time to see you go completely splat." Des smacked her fist against her palm. "Misha here did not hold back, and you were straight up turned into a pancake."

"You seem far too excited about me getting pancaked," I glared at Des. 

"Des is rightly excited. It was an informative experience," Candice came up behind us.

"Hello, I am Candice." She introduced herself to the Whaleryn again. “Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?” 

"A pleasure to meet you." Baloo did a bowing nod. "If you all don't mind, however, we will now continue on to Star City. May you have the best luck with your current dive. And when you return to Star City, let us have a drink together." Baloo spoke seriously. 

"He's very formal," The other female Whaleryn apologized on his behalf. 

"No problem." I said quickly.

"Again, thank you for the directions. Who knows how much longer we would have been down here without your assistance." She bowed just as formally as Baloo. 

I'd only met a few Whaleryn, however, I was quickly starting to understand what an oddball Misha might actually be. At least if the others were any example. 

"And when you get back to Star City, don't blow us off," Misha pointed at me accusingly. 

"I promise I won't." And once again, I went over the directions for them, not wanting them to get lost. Directions in the dungeon were rather simple. Between two safe zones, there was really only ever a single path. And it was easy to describe which one to take next, either describing the boss or taking the path down. 

Baloo nodded again, but he didn't write anything down. All of them seemed to continuously try and commit information to memory.

I had to assume they had something like a CID. If they were as advanced in the dungeon as the Orcai, then they would certainly have similar technology or could get it from one of the other races.

In no time, however, they wandered off the thump of Baloo’s anchor spinning told me exactly how they cleared as they went.

"Well, they were friendly," Des smiled as the Whaleren left us. "What now?"

"I think we should continue down this way. We have until Monday before Crimson asks us back to class." So far, we’d just traveled through Friday afternoon and evening.

"Uh-huh," Harley squinted at me. "So we just continue on this random-ass roundabout way through the dungeon.”

“Do you trust me, Harley?" I nudged her.

"Absolutely. However, I can't help but be a little suspicious about where we're going.” Harley eyed me.

“Have I told you Crimson sent me down this way?" I used Crimson as the ultimate shield. 

"And I definitely don't want to go down this way," Harley said emphatically. "Do I die at the end of this tunnel? Tell me. Really, Ken. Why does Crimson want to kill me? I'm too cute to die." She pleaded with me with big, wide eyes that were completely ineffective. Charlotte and Felin could do the look a thousand times better.

"No, she doesn't want you to die. She gave me the route and told us there would be a reward if we could get to the end. Though, she also made it sound like she didn't expect us to do this in a single trip." Now I was just making shit up. The rest of my class was looking at me expectantly.

"Well, if this is the direction Crimson wants us to go, then there must be some reason to all of it. Besides Harley, do you want to disappoint Crimson?" Taylor put a hand on Harley's shoulder.

The bard shivered head to toe, her eyes going wide with fear. "You're right, we should go the way that Ken is leading us. After all, we don't want to disappoint Crimson." Harley started moving stiffly through the dungeon. Meanwhile, my own party gave me knowing looks.

"Onward." Penny led the group.

My party already knew what was at the end of this path. The only part we didn't know is how long the path would take to reach our goals.

I used [Eyes of Wisdom] once more, asking 'where is the nearest trial?' A blue path through this dungeon floor glowed before me.

Des shrugged. “Whether we go this way or any other way doesn't matter to me. And if this way potentially makes Crimson happier, then all the better in my opinion."

The rest of the class either simply didn't care or didn't bother voicing their opinions. Nobody spoke as we continued moving through the dungeon.

"I liked the zombies," Harley said as we began walking. "They were a lot easier to kill. Hmm, not as scary as I expected zombies to be."

"Really? I thought you would have hated them. Dealing with the zombies meant lots of running in circles." I replied.

Harley paused to consider that. "I guess there are pros and cons to everything. One of these days we'll find the perfect spot in the instance where I can just sit still and play my flute while my harem kills everything around me." She tossed her pink hair, living in a delusion.

The dungeon didn't give anything for free.

It didn't take long for monsters to begin appearing on the floor around us. There were large birds with snakes coming out where their tail feathers should have been. They were called Hydra Roosters and our groups began leapfrogging over one another as we cleared the dungeon floor. It was only level 49, a level lower than mine.