Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 5

Chapter 5

A change in the appearance of the dungeon entrance startled him out of his work with the Plates, which he hadn’t finished attaching to his equipment quite yet.  Looking up at it, Thaden realized that his turn was up, and the impatient and annoyed comments from the Guild Raid Party behind him made him hurry his steps forward until he was right in front of the hazy barrier that marked the entry to the Crestline Gorge Dungeon.

Stepping through the barrier, time seemed to stop as a prompt entered his vision.

Select your dungeon type:

Basic (Small Party 1<5)

Intermediate (Raid Party 6<100)

This is new.  Without more than a second’s hesitation at the appearance of the new prompt, he quickly selected “Intermediate”.

Crestline Gorge Intermediate Raid Dungeon

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal    Medial    Maximal

Dungeon Slayer World First Achievement override!

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal    Medial    Maximal

You have entered the Crestline Gorge Intermediate Raid Dungeon (Minimal Difficulty)!

Crestline Gorge Intermediate Raid Dungeon

Current Difficulty: Minimal   Medial   Maximal

Maximum Raid Party Size: 100

Recommended Raid Party Levels: 140 - 150

The numbers and Levels of the Guild Raid Parties outside suddenly made a lot more sense once he saw the notifications of the Crestline Gorge Intermediate Raid Dungeon on Minimal difficulty.  Given that the Recommended Raid Party Levels were from 140 to 150, which was far below his own, the Solitary Shaman was tempted to exit and reenter so that he could attempt the Medial difficulty, but he decided against it.  He was here to see how dangerous an Intermediate dungeon – which was designed for 100 Contenders – actually was, and this would be a good baseline for a slightly more difficult dungeon designed for Levels 160+.  He didn’t need to go all out and tackle a much harder dungeon if it wasn’t necessary, as all he needed was a minimal difficulty dungeon completed for his Evolution Assignment.  Once he obtained his next Class, he could go crazy with all the higher difficulty Intermediate dungeons, after all.

The first thing he noticed once time started again and he took his first step into the Crestline Gorge was that it had changed dramatically from what he’d seen before in the “Basic” dungeon difficulties.  No longer was it a series of stone walls or foliage directing small parties of Contenders into different “rooms” with monsters that would be there to attack them.  Instead, the entire width of the Gorge, which was much wider than it appeared from the outside at about 2,000 feet, was completely open, with just a few large boulders around 30 feet tall scattered around the dirt-filled expanse.  In the distance, a massively tall wall stretched the length of the gorge, with an opening in the middle that was large enough for 10 people side by side to walk through it.  He couldn’t see what lay on the other side of the wall, but he suspected that it was probably something similar to what he was looking at now.

For all of the openness of this first section of the Intermediate Dungeon, Thaden couldn’t see a single monster.  He suspected once he moved from the entrance, they might appear, but for now it simply looked like a barren expanse, completely devoid of any danger.

Before he moved from what was ostensibly a safe assembly area near the entrance, Thaden decided to finish the project he was working on with his Plates.  He wasn’t sure if it what he’d attached to his equipment was the ideal combination or not, but he was having fun experimenting for the moment.  Once he had a little more downtime, he fully expected to change some things up for better optimization – or he might even go shopping in the Contender Market for specific effects to duplicate once he knew what he was lacking.

Placing the last few Plates he had left, he reviewed where he’d stuck them all for the moment.  First, he left the 12 Plates on his Healthful Protection set before turning to his new Mithril Ring.  After adding 20 Plates to the new Ring, he added 10 Plates to his crafted Belt, and then just finished up by adding the remaining 12 Plates to his Bracelet.  By doing it gradually, he had adjusted to the changes, but even with that gradual process, he still felt slightly uncomfortable with the dramatic differences.  He was sure he would get used to it, but for the moment, he felt like his body and head were about to burst.  He pulled up his Bonus Breakdown and concentrated on just the stat changes before looking at the other effects.

Equipment Bonuses:

Physicality: 3,393 (+30% to equipment stat bonuses)

Celerity: 4,329 (+30% to equipment stat bonuses)

Mentality: 10,659 (+60% to equipment stat bonuses)  

Personality: 2,610

Fortuity: 2,691

Physical Damage Resistance: 900

Magical Damage Resistance: 9,540

Physicality – 1,738 (5,131)

Celerity – 1,719 (6,048)

Mentality – 4,284 (14,943)

Personality – 500 (3,110)

Fortuity – 655 (3,346)

No wonder I feel so uncomfortable; I tripled my physical stats and more than tripled my Mentality – while also increasing my Personality and Fortuity by almost 6 times their original numbers.

As for the effects, he was now capped at a 95% reduction in casting time and cooldowns for all spells, but those weren’t even the best changes. 

Casting Time Reduction (All): (240%) Capped at 95%

Cooldown Reduction (All): 75% (339%) Capped at 95%

Chance to double effectiveness of Defensive spells: (190%) Capped at 100%

Spell Effectiveness Increase (All): 60% (129%)

Automatic healing when someone is protected by Defensive spell: (18% of prevented damage)

Support spells cast upon a target protected by Defensive spell: (60% of maximum Health)

Damage Mitigation Increase (Defensive): 116% (275%)

Healing Increase (All): 133% (860%)

The biggest changes were in an increase in Damage Mitigation, which was at nearly 400%, and in Healing done by spells and effects, which was just shy of a 1,000% increase!  As far as he was concerned, it was an incredible amount of changes in a short amount of time, and he was eager to test it all out.

Before he could take a single step forward to see what the Intermediate Dungeon had to offer, another notification popped up and then minimized to the top right corner of his vision.

AMP Synchronization in progress: 0.01%

“Uh… what?” he asked out loud in surprise, though there was no one to answer him.  As it minimized to the corner of his vision, he saw it tick up to 0.02%, but he had no idea what it meant.  Any attempts to dig further into the notifications got him nowhere, and no explanation was forthcoming.

Worried about his new Plates he’d attached to his equipment, he held his hand up to his chest to detach one of them, only to be denied with another notification.

Unable to detach ARM placements until Synchronization is complete!

He tried again and got the same message, adding to his mounting frustration and worry.  At least it says that I can theoretically detach them after this “Synchronization” thing is complete.  That made him feel a little better, but he was still worried that he’d inadvertently caused his new Plates to become permanently attached to his current equipment.  After another minute of attempting to detach the plates, and also discovering that he also couldn’t remove his actual equipment from his body, he fought down the panic and tried to give a nonchalant shrug to himself, but it felt extremely forced. 

Letting out a heavy sigh, he rolled his shoulders a few times as he put this new development out of his mind as he prepared for his foray into the dungeon.  Now with a total of 28 Access Slots available for his spells, Thaden looked at his “loadout” he’d assembled before he left his room earlier, only taking time to change out Superior Resurrection which he’d slotted in earlier but didn’t up using outside the entrance.

Access Slots: 0/28 Available

Support Spells:

Superior Regeneration – 1 Access Slot

Superior Cure Physical Affliction (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Cure Mental Affliction (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Health Augmentation (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Wild Health Leach (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Mana Transformation (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Healing Burst (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Overheal (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Support Sprite (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Full Heal (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Defensive Spells:

Superior Protective Guards (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Death Ward (Single Cast) – 2 Access Slots

Superior Protective Barrier (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Damage Shield (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Stacking Buffers (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Defensive Sprite (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Superior Incarnation of Protection (Single Cast) – 3 Access Slots

Superior Mirrored Vigil (Reserved) – 3 Access Slots

Spiritual Spells:

Superior Dominate Spirit (Single Cast) – 5 Access Slots

The only Spiritual Spell he had loaded up at the moment was Superior Dominate Spirit, as he could well afford to cast it now, though he was prepared to change it out for anything else if it was necessary.  He just wanted to reserve those 5 Access Slots for it in case it became useful, especially since he was guaranteed to win any battle of spiritual will thanks to his new Advancement.

He was planning on using his normal Wild Health Leach strategy against whatever he was up against, with the addition of Mirrored Vigil to add a copy of himself with full protections, as he could now afford the 45% Reserved Mana Cost (which was further reduced by his bonuses) and still be able to cast every single spell he had in his Access Slots.

He double-checked his protections to make sure they were all refreshed, including his Death Ward, recast his Sprites, brought out his Incarnation of Protection, made sure his Mana Transformation had converted his Mana into Physicality up to his natural limits, cast Health Augmentation to increase his maximum Health, added Overheal followed by Regeneration and Healing Burst, both of which quickly reached the maximum that Overheal would add to his maximum Health.

Preparations complete, his eyes practically bugged out of his head as he looked at his current Health.

Health – 2,323,890

Granted, his current Health was temporary based on the spells he’d cast to boost it multiple times, but it was still insane.  When he factored in the nearly 1,000% increase in healing he could do overall, and another 133% when it was a single target, which didn’t even take his spell effectiveness increases into account, something like Superior Regeneration – which, at its base, healed for 10% of his maximum Health every 5 seconds – would be healing for a little over 3 million Health every 5 seconds.  When he factored spell effectiveness in to it, which increased the base effectiveness of healing spells and effects on himself for a total of 284% plus the bonuses from his Support Sprite at 411%, every 5 seconds he would be healing 80% of his maximum Health multiplied by his bonus healing, so…

…just a paltry 22.8 million Health every 5 seconds. 

And that was just for one spell.  There were other factors to consider, such as his bonuses in extra healing from his Healthful Protection equipment set, his Afterglow Advancement, the Wild Health Leach bonuses to Healing and the damage it did along with the 60% damage bonus from his upgradeable Achievement he’d received from the Rankings… all of that meant his output of damage against nearby targets was absolutely incredible. 

In other words, whatever this Intermediate dungeon had in store for him, he was more than ready.  With a cast of Mirrored Vigil, which produced what appeared to be a realistic, holographic copy of himself standing next to his Incarnation of Protection, he stepped forward to face the challenges ahead of him.

(All this math hurt my squishy brain, but now I can finally get back to the fun action stuff now that the setup is complete!)