Cat Core 3, Chapter 19.

Chapter 19.

“Well, looks like this dungeon is going to be disagreeable, so get ready for a fight folks,” Florence said, pulling on her mana to summon one of her kitty defenders. Fizz still hadn’t fixed his zapper gun yet, so he was using the crossbow contraption he had been working on. Doug hissed at the approaching wolves, moving to take on his natural enemies, while George just growled and seemed to grow even more hairy as he stomped his way toward them weird guys with the clubs. From her Dungeon Delve game, Florence recognized the club guys as troggs, which were kind of like cavemen or something of the like.

Summon Defender spawned a big fluffy brawler kitty to help them, Charybdis, one of the ones that Doug named, of course. With four wolves and three of the troggs, they were outnumbered, but rather than summon another kitty, Florence hit Doug with an Empower Beast, making him fill out with muscle and look a bit scarier. Fizz’s crossbow clacked, sending a bolt into one of the wolves that yelped in pain and changed its charge from Doug to Fizz. Charybdis jumped in front of the wolf, claws and teeth tearing into its larger foe.

Her kitties might only be level two, but they were fierce, and Charybdis didn’t give up, holding her own against the already wounded wolf. Florence then summoned another cat to help out George who was facing three opponents by himself. Pebbles, the gravel-colored tabby commando appeared and charged into the fight. Patricio also decided to help out, well, help out as much as a bard can, she supposed. The man began to strum his mandolin and hum along with the music. Florence was expecting a buff to affect them, or a debuff to hit their opponents, and was surprised when Patricio hit an off chord, causing a horrible sound to emit from his instrument.

“Nice one, Patricio,” Fizz complemented as a wave of force left Patricio’s mandolin and slammed into one of the troggs, causing it to screech for a moment before falling to the ground, taken out by the sonic damage the bard inflicted.

“Be careful Doug, don’t let them bunch up on you,” Florence warned as the wolves surrounded her companion and started nipping at him from every direction.

“Distracting me isn’t exactly helping,” Doug snarled back, ungrateful for her assistance.

“Fine, you deal it yourself, this is all I’m going to do to help you,” Florence replied, pulling mana to cast another empower beast on Doug. Moving faster from the buff, Doug leaped onto one wolf, savaging it with his claw ability and jumping away before the others could react. He was doing okay, so maybe Florence should focus on helping George.

George was still in the fight, but he didn’t look much like George anymore, he was more like a half-man, half-ape that was all muscle-bound like a professional wrasslers. He had beaten down one trogg and had the last one in a headlock. Given the gross creaking noises coming from the troggs’ neck, Florence didn’t think that one was long for this world. Patricio fired off another sonic blast from his mandolin, taking out one of the wolves battling Doug. It was kind of a dopey combat ability, with Patricio strumming his tiny guitar while looking like some washed up rockstar, like one of them on her shows that say they’re turning their lives around after abusing drugs and alcohol, but everyone could tell they were still hitting the sauce.

“It’s over?” Fizz asked, trying to aim his crossbow at something and finding no targets to hit. Doug and George were finishing off the last of the attackers and Patricio looked kind of bored.

“Yep, looks that way,” Florence replied, walking over to one of the fallen enemy defenders to see if she could loot it. As she feared, the glowing spot that normally indicated a loot drop wouldn’t react to her touch, something about being a core shard prevented her from partaking in the rewards.

“Allow me, my dear,” Patricio said, reaching down to pull a small purse of coins from the glow.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Fizz complained.

“I think it's because he’s a normal guy, not part of my core in any way,” Florence said.

“That would seem to be a logical conclusion, it appears you needed my assistance more than you previously believed,” Patricio said, smiling and rolling the end of his ridiculous mustache like a villain in an old-timey movie.

“Don’t get too full of yourself, buster, we’re all part of the team,” Florence reminded him, it wouldn’t do to have the guy start thinking he was overly important.

“Never fear, I am the avatar of humility, and I must say, your little team is much more effective than I had suspected. We may be able to progress further than I had thought we would be able to,” Patricio said as he made the rounds to gather all the loot. The system organized the loot rather nicely for Florence, keeping track of everything Patricio picked up, which would also serve to keep the shifty bard honest.

Total rewards for this delve:

Coins:

1. Copper, 113.

2. Silver, 11.

Items:

1. Steel Dagger.

“Being that this is only the first room of the dungeon, the rewards will improve,” Patricio offered. It wasn’t horrible, but they had a long way to go if they wanted to recoup the hundred gold that they had shelled out to bribe their way into the dungeon.

“Hey George, what gives with the gorilla impression?” Florence asked.

“Apparently, I’m a berserker class of some type, and when I become engaged in combat, I take on a more feral form and become more powerful the longer I fight,” George said. He was still figuring out his abilities and whatnot, learning more as his mind cleared up. Given that he seemed pretty smart, she was surprised that he wasn’t a wizard or something. She wasn’t going to complain though, they really did need a tank for their party.

For being all ticked off over her arrival, the dungeon was a reasonable enough host to not throw everything at her team all at once like George did. For the most part, the dungeon was behaving normally, save for a few rooms that were empty for some reason. The defenders weren’t too challenging either, more of the wolves and troggs, but as they progressed further into the first level, they started to see more powerful variants, like wolves with a leap attack ability and trogg shamans that cast some spell that hurled rocks at them.

The dungeon décor left something to be desired. It was a typical creepy and dangerous cave layout, but maybe the lack of flair was due to the lich messing with the core. She was kind of looking forward to the other levels of the dungeon, maybe the core stepped up its game as you progressed further inside. Now for Florence’s home, she preferred consistency of design, a beautiful home from the front lawn to the backyard, and everything in between.

Despite being only level two, and who knew what level Patricio was, they bested what were likely level three or four defenders that populated this area without breaking a sweat. After an hour of clearing the place, Patricio warned they were approaching the area that the floor champion guarded. The champion was a frost wolf that could breathe out a cone of cold that did considerable damage.

“Any advice for this critter?” Florence asked as they stood at the entrance to the champion’s lair.

“If you see its sides heave and it takes a big breath, take cover because a cone of cold is about to show up. It also will have defenders, a pair of normal wolves, along with a second pair that it can summon if the fight goes on long enough. I’ll play a little tune that should bolster our defense against cold damage but keeping it up will reduce the number of sonic attacks I can make,” Patricio told them.

“I think some extra protection is worth a bit less DPS in this case,” Florence said.

“DPS?” Patricio asked, with Fizz and George also looking a bit confused.

“That is a term from her original world, Earth, it means Damage Per Second, and was used in many games and simulations,” Doug replied.

“Damage Per Second, well, that’s a new one and seems like an appropriate measure in this type of situation. I may borrow that phrase for one of my future musings,” Patricio said, starting in on his song while they entered the champion’s lair.

“And here we go, George, get the things attention. Doug, flank it, and everyone else, do what you do best,” Florence said, trying to take charge as a huge white wolf stalked out of the dark to confront their intrusion.

“Look out, it's firing off a cone of cold!” Patricio warned jumping out of the way. Everyone was moving around all crazy to avoid the ability, but they blocked Florence’s view and when they finally moved out of the way, the cone was heading right toward her. It was frustrating, she only had a few deaths left, and she didn’t want to use one of those up for a stupid first-floor champion. Instead of freezing her into a Florence ice cube, the blast washed over her, stinging, and hurting a bit as the icy shards struck, but only bringing her health down by just over ten percent.

A new trait has been discovered, Elemental Resistance. As a core shard, elemental damage has much less of an effect on your physical form. You are not immune, but it will take considerable elemental damage to destroy you. Be warned, only the elemental damage is resisted, other damage types, if included in the spell or ability, are not mitigated. Your companion and others linked to your core will be granted a weaker version of your Elemental Resistance trait.

“Florence! Are you okay?” Patricio called out, which was kind of surprising considering he was still able to strum his mandolin and keep humming a tune at the same time. Maybe this guy was better at his job than Florence was giving him credit for.

“I’m fine, just keep on task, Patricio. It takes a lot more than some wolf breath to take me down,” Florence replied.

The others ignored the blast, concentrating on the champion. George went all super gorilla and started slamming his fists into the beast while Doug snuck up behind and leaped on its back, clawing and biting. Fizz fired on a pair of normal wolves that attacked from the flanks, and Florence started to summon defenders to support him and distract any additional wolves that joined the fight.

Luca the Blue Death, and Sherbet appeared as the orange Main Coon brawler and the blue shorthair water mage were summoned. Fizz dropped his crossbow and intercepted the smaller wolves with his oversized wrench to buy Florence time to summon. Once the kitty summons had joined the fight, Florence started to buff Doug, pouring Empower Beast into her companion over and over to make him more powerful. As she expected, the champion was tough, but not tough enough to stand against their entire party working together. Before long, it fell.

“Well, that wasn’t too challenging. Everyone rest up, then we’ll try the next level I believe. Where is it?” Florence asked Patricio, feeling a bit more confident now that they had faced, and defeated a champion.

“Hold on, let me search for a reward chest, they’re a bit more common in the champion’s chamber. Ah, here it is,” Patricio said grabbing the loot from the boss and then taking the small box that had appeared further back in the champion’s lair. Like they normally did, the box dissolved away as soon as Patricio grabbed it, but it left behind a good-sized bag that would hopefully contain something valuable. The system sorted out all the loot they had gathered on the first level, making things organized for her.

Total rewards for this delve:

Coins:

1. Copper, 816.

2. Silver, 144.

3. Gold, 28

Items:

1. Steel Dagger.

2. Masterwork Glaive.

3. Chain Shirt.

4. Potion of minor healing (2).

5. Masterwork Dagger *

“What’s with that masterwork dagger?” Florence asked. There was an asterisk next to its description in her interface and it looked kind of fancy with a long, curved blade that was sharper than even the good knife from her kitchen.

“So, you can tell it’s special, can’t you? Never worry, Florence my dear, the services of the realm’s greatest bard are at your command. This is a magical item, and my vast knowledge of lore will reveal its secrets momentarily,” Patricio said before shutting up and staring intently at the dagger for an uncomfortably long time. When he was done, the item was updated in her interface.

This dagger carries a simple enchantment that causes the wounds it creates to refuse to close, adding a minor bleed effect until the victim sought treatment. Bandaging a wound securely would stop the bleeding, as would any magical healing.

“Nasty, but I suppose it’ll sell for a nice bit of coin,” Florence said.

“Indeed, I know just the place to unload this. They’ll purchase it and any other magical items we find without asking any questions that we don’t want to be asked. The only downside is that their discretion comes with a slightly below market value offer,” Patricio said.

“I’ll take a little less for it if they don’t go blabbing their mouths off about who sold it to them. Just don’t go getting us ripped off,” Florence said.

“Never fear, my skills of negotiation are without peer,” Patricio said. Florence was about to argue that point, everyone in the county knew that Florence Valentine could haggle with the best of them, but before she could argue, Florence began to feel something shift in the dungeon as its core began to change, its previous annoyance at her intrusion being stoked into fury by the lich’s curse.

“Hold up on finding the next level, I think it’s time to leave,” Florence said, as growls and shrieks of rage began to sound out from the levels below. The dungeon was roused, and it sounded like it was going after Florence with everything it had.