Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Even with the worry about what happened outside the dungeon on his mind, Thaden couldn’t help but be impressed at the differences that the Medial difficulty presented.  Granted, his experiences seeing multiple difficulties in a dungeon was confined to the Mausoleum of Despair, which hadn’t really changed its overall look except to perhaps become larger with the harder difficulties; as a result, he was unprepared to see all of the vegetation gone, leaving what appeared to be piles of stone that created walls which would funnel the Contenders through its different sections.  These stone piles were at least 50 feet tall, making seeing more than a few dozen feet ahead impossible, so they had no idea what was awaiting them ahead.

“What the?  Does it really change this much in between difficulties?” David asked, slightly breathless at the sight. 

“Not in my experience, but I’m also not as experienced in testing multiple difficulties in the same dungeon as you might think,” Thaden responded when no one else did.  He turned back to the party, which tore their focus away from the completely different layout of the dungeon and back to him.  “Look, it’s decision time again.  You can still leave right now and take off before the rumors become more than what they currently are; if that’s what you want to do, I’ll pay you what I agreed to in gold without the extra loot and we go back out the entrance.

“If you still decide to go through with this, then we need to complete this dungeon as quickly as possible to get out ahead of this thing.  Either way, it’s going to require relocating, but this way you’ll have some good loot to go along with the gold so you can restart somewhere else.  What will it be?  You have to decide quickly, because we don’t have a lot of time.”

He hated to rush them, but they were all on a timer now.  Thaden would be fine no matter what, he figured, as he could easily outpace anyone trying to hunt him down, and that was only if changing his name and appearance as much as he could didn’t work.  He still had a few things he needed to do in the city before he left it, such as getting his new Class – if the party agreed to delve through the Medial difficulty, of course – and getting any information on Support-focused dungeons that might be nearby, which he’d put off learning about while he took care of this whole Evolution Assignment situation.

It was only then that he would go searching for the next dungeon from his SPECIAL Quest.

But, while Thaden would most likely be fine, his current party likely would not, unless they decided to stay at Level 20 for an extended period of time to stay relatively safe.  While that was still possible, he doubted they wanted to stall their development for any longer, given that they had already been at it for at least a few days and would quickly fall behind everyone else.

It didn’t take long for them to decide, fortunately, and it was to push through and finish the dungeon as soon as possible.  Thaden was somewhat relieved despite the higher danger to them by waiting to leave the area, but it was their decision in the end.  With that settled, he started casting his barrage of protection spells on them again with Sprites, Buffers, Barriers, Shields, and Mana Rejuvenation all working together to make them as strong as possible. 

While they didn’t run, they did hurry down the first gap in the stone piles, where they followed a narrow pathway that wound slightly in its route, but they eventually came to an open space.  Instead of stronger Grats, Grophers, or Squirrelmonks, this difficulty apparently changed up the monster assortment completely.

Pebbler – Minimal

Level 30

A trio of large pebble piles appeared fairly innocent at first glance in the enclosed space, but that was an illusion.  As soon as Carlos stepped over the threshold into the roughly circular “room”, the piles of pebbles shifted, rolling toward the Fighter swiftly.  The Pebblers’ individual pebbles, each the size of a pea, stayed largely together, moving like a targeted wave in the ocean as they closed in on the slightly nervous-looking Shieldman.

“This might not be a good matchup for me, but I’ll try,” Melindra said, and Thaden realized as an Apprentice Earth Mage, her focus of magic was ill-suited to combating the same type of element.  Then again, when she created a boulder and tossed it at the nearest Pebbler, the projectile ended up crushing thousands of the pebbles into dust, eliminating a quarter of one in seconds. 

Unfortunately, swords and knives didn’t really do much against what were essentially little stones, as Carlos’ and Gregory’s weapons basically slid through the pile while scratching some of the pebbles.  It was actually David that ended up finding their weakness, as he conjured a flat transparent wall that he dropped on one of the piles, which squished it just enough that they could see the sight of something in the middle of the pebbles that looked like some sort of throbbing heart. 

Of course, getting to that was easier said than done.  While Carlos and Gregory were ineffectively trying to fight back, even using some skills that they hadn’t had to use during the Minimal difficulty version, such as power strikes that did more damage, the Pebblers were forming multiple strong appendages out of their stones before pounding them into Carlos and even Gregory when he got too close.  They also used these appendages to protect themselves once the ooey gooey vulnerable center was revealed, deftly deflecting weapon strikes like expert warriors. 

The only one having any offensive luck was Melindra, despite her warning that she wouldn’t be as useful against these monsters, as she started creating spikes that attempted to pierce through the Pebblers’ vulnerability.  She got lucky once, managing for her spell to come up underneath one of them and hit the heart of one, which managed to kill it, but subsequent attacks were somehow sensed and avoided as the monsters shifted out of the way. 

On the defensive front, the protections that he’d put in place on Carlos and Gregory were quickly being consumed by the constant and powerful attacks of the two remaining Pebblers, though he was constantly replacing them without the fear of them being hurt.  What he’d forgotten about was the 50% chance to reflect 5% of the damage on any Defensive spells he cast, which applied to protective spells cast on others.  As a result, every other hit against their protections caused a few dozen pebbles to suddenly disintegrate as their damage was reflected upon them, but it would likely take at least 10 minutes or more for the reflected damage being done to actually kill them.

That… wouldn’t do, especially as they needed to hurry.

“I’m going in and grabbing aggro!” Thaden shouted, sprinting forward even as he switched out his Major Support Sprite with Major Healing Wave.  He then stood next to the Pebblers and channeled the healing spell, which almost immediately tore the attention they were paying to Carlos and Gregory and focused them on his completely protected form.

“What are you doing?!  They’re going to kill—oh,” Carlos said in shock, seeing that Thaden was perfectly fine.

“Yes, now kill them while they’re distracted!” he shouted, even as multiple pebbly appendaged slammed into his Major Repulsion Field.  Two things happened when that occurred, one of them he expected while the other was not.  First, the damage reflect effect triggered twice and he saw a few dozen pebbles on each monster suddenly disintegrate as he’d seen with Carlos and Gregory.  What he wasn’t expecting was for the repulsion effect of his physical protection Field to send chunks of the pebble-filled appendages flying away like little stone bullets, where they impacted against the nearby wall and shattered into pieces.

He could only assume that because each individual pebble didn’t weigh a whole lot, the repulsion effect was much more impactful than it was against a larger, heavier monster, where he sometimes didn’t see any pushback at all. 

“Careful!  Watch out for the flying shrapnel!” he shouted to be heard over the sound of cracking pebbles and the whiz sound they made when they were launched away from him. 

With the Pebblers essentially whittling themselves away via his Repulsion Field as well as the reflected damage, the remaining monsters were quickly disappearing – and yet that wasn’t fast enough.  Thankfully, being distracted by the juicy Support Class standing helplessly in the middle of the Pebbly monsters was enough to allow the rest of the party to attack from behind, where they were able to stab and impale the hearts, or cores, of the enemies attacking Thaden.

When they were dead, his party members stared at him for a moment, but he shrugged in response to their disbelief at his abilities.  “Alright, we’re speedrunning this thing.  Get ready, we’re not stopping; attack from behind when you can but watch out for the shrapnel, and I’ll keep everyone topped up on protections.  Ready?”

“Are you sure this is the best idea?” Gregory quickly asked.

“100% sure?  No, but this will get us through faster.  And speed is the only thing on our side right now.”

No one argued with that, as they rapidly agreed with the plan as they followed behind Thaden.  As he passed through the pathway leading to the next area, he triggered a rockfall trap that normally would’ve squished him, but his Fields protected him and simply shunted them off to the side, leaving the way open to those who followed behind.

During the Minimal difficulty delve, he had wanted to experiment with some of his spells that he’d never had a chance to use, while also letting his party adjust to the changes that he brought in terms of protection.  It had felt good to sit back and let them do all the hard work for a change, even though they sped through it so quickly that he hadn’t even seen any activation of the chance for his defensive spells to reflect damage; regardless, it had felt good to help them out and experience what it could be like with a powerful Support Class member of their party backing them up.

He had planned to do more of the same and perhaps change up some of the spells he used for some variety inside the Medial version of the dungeon, but that went right out the window with the time constraints combined with the nature of the monsters they faced.  He was fairly certain that if his party had newly evolved Classes, they would be able to do a lot more damage to something like the Pebbler, but right now they weren’t capable of doing much to them without some help.

Which left Thaden, which was perfectly fine with him.  He was fairly certain that he could easily solo this entire dungeon difficulty without any problems whatsoever, but he needed his party present to check off the remaining task to his Evolution Assignment; if that meant carrying the team so that they got through quicker, then that was exactly what he’d do.

The next area had a quartet of Pebblers at Level 31, and after gathering them up and acquiring their attention with his constant channeling of Major Healing Wave, he kept walking.  He only had to periodically look back at his party members as they trailed behind the Pebblers that were constantly trying to hit him with their pebbly appendages with refreshes to their protections and Mana Rejuvenation, but otherwise he simply kept to a steady walk.  That steady walk increased to a light jog when his party members were able to kill three of the four Pebblers before he even got to the next open space, as the distraction that Thaden presented was the opening they needed to eliminate them from behind.

Only about 5 minutes later, with a half-dozen Level 33 Pebblers following him into the next area, they encountered the newest denizens of the Medial-difficulty dungeon.

Hurling Chunkeys – Minimal

Level 34

Chunks of stone the size of his torso were hurled at him from three different directions as a trio of brown-haired monkeys, approximately two-thirds of his height, and covered in sporadic stone plates – that he supposed functioned like armor – ripped out portions of the stone walls like they were made of clay instead of hard rock.  A look at the walls after each chunk was thrown at him, only to bounce off when they hit his Field, showed that they weren’t really depleting the walls, as it never seemed to show where the chunks were taken from. 

In other words, though it appeared as though the Hurling Chunkeys were taking from the walls, in reality, they were simply materializing their projectiles with magic.

“New targets!  Take them out while I keep moving up,” Thaden told the others in his party, and they took to it immediately.  While they had stone armor covering some of their bodies, the Chunkeys were also flesh and blood rather than a collection of pebbles, and his party absolutely slaughtered the monsters.  It helped that, while they were accurate with their potentially deadly projectiles, any of which could heavily injure or kill one of the casters if they didn’t have protection, none of them hesitated to move right up to them and hit them point-blank with spells or skills.

What was more, the pebbled that were repulsed from Thaden’s Field were also detrimental to the Chunkeys.  He watched as a repulsion of the small rocks punched into the leg of one of the stone-hurling monsters like a spray of buckshot; half of it was reflected by a piece of stone armor, but the rest tore through its leg, causing it to collapse to one knee.  Somehow, he managed to have one basic dungeon monster hurt another, something he’d never really done before except for that Magma Colossus Boss, but he thought that was entirely different; he felt a sense of accomplishment at this that made his smile a bit as he kept moving.

Another rockfall trap obliterated one of the trailing Pebblers as he moved to the next area, where he picked up four Chunkeys to add to his collection, which simply helped to eliminate them faster because they were now behind him and in the line of fire from the repulsed stones of the Pebblers.

“I guess we’ll just clean up after you,” Carlos joked once they caught up to his menagerie of monsters.  When he looked back at them, that was exactly what they did, as two of the four Chunkeys had been injured but not killed by what was essentially friendly fire courtesy of pebble buckshot.  Another Pebbler had been “wounded” – for want of a better word – when a hurled chunk of stone slammed into it, which almost seemed like retaliation for the injuries they were sustaining at the expense of the other monster.

The members of his party worked together to eliminate the stragglers, who were totally focused on Thaden, as he pushed ahead still at a light jog, turning to replenish protections on them whenever he needed to.  They kept moving without a hitch, even as more monsters with higher Levels appeared in the next few areas, which was when they encountered yet another new addition to the dungeon.

Dusty Condor – Minimal

Level 38

As a pair of the large birds, which didn’t appear to have anything but stone dust covering them for protection, swooped down on Thaden, he wasn’t sure what to think.  It was only when they stopped in unison and flapped their wings to cover about 30 feet away in the air above his head that he got an inkling of what they intended.  Quickly switching out Major Defensive Sprite for Major Cure Physical Affliction, it was just in time as the Condor’s flapping wings suddenly created a swirling cyclone of air that picked up the dust along the ground, which was quickly pushed toward the Lifewarden out front of his collection of trailing monsters.  The dust cyclone wasn’t stopped by his Fields, as it didn’t do any damage to him, but was instead intended to do something else: to blind.  As he felt the dusty grit fill his eyes as he attempted to blink them away, he was essentially blinded – which was thankfully an affliction that he could cure with a spell. 

Casting the spell, he could feel it magically eliminate all the dust in his eyes, only for it to be filled again a second later; he had to hold his arm over his eyes and kept them close to prevent being blinded again, though that just meant he still couldn’t see.

This lasted for approximately 5 seconds before the dust cyclone changed, becoming stronger and therefore more damaging.  The Dust Condor’s clever ploy of blinding its victims and then scouring them to death with larger dust and stone particles backfired, as his Major Absorption Field finally kicked in and blocked it, as it was a magical attack that was being produced.

With the Field now blocking the blinding dust from entering his eyes, he was able to look around, only to see nothing but the dust cyclone for another 10 seconds, before it dissipated.  Once all but a smattering of dust had settled around him, Thaden was able to look up at the Condors, which appeared to be exhausted after the strong use of their magical dust storm, but he sensed that they would be creating another one soon once they rested.  He couldn’t help but be fairly impressed at the deadliness of all these monsters working together, as the Pebbler was an annoying close-range fighter, the Chunkeys were powerful long-range attackers, and the Condors could both blind and deal tremendous amounts of magical damage. 

It was a good thing for everyone that he was able to counter all of that. 

A stone spear suddenly shot out from behind him and impaled one of the hovering Condors, killing it instantly.  It was obvious that the birds were rather weak in the defensive department, as it practically exploded when Melindra’s own projectile sheared through it, but the problem was actually hitting it from down below.  For parties that didn’t have a good long-range members, they might struggle, but thankfully their Apprentice Earth Mage made up for it.

Or at least until the other Condor switched from being stationary in the air as it hovered, ready to cast another dust cyclone, to gliding swiftly through the air.  Melindra attempted to hit it but missed three times in a row; David attempted to conjure a wall in front of it to slow it down, as well as some ropes to bind its wings, but it was able to maneuver through the air agilely enough to slip through everything sent its way. 

Annoyed at the delay, as leaving the Condor to follow behind would only make moving through the rest of the areas harder when he couldn’t see where he was going, Thaden switched out Major Cure Physical Affliction for Major Mana Transformation and rapidly boosted his Celerity to triple its normal base level.  Used to such rapid changes in his body, it only took him a few seconds to adjust as he knelt down, picked up a rock shard that had broken off one of the Chunkey’s projectiles that was approximately the size of a baseball, and then he chucked it at the flying bird with all his strength.  With his boosted Celerity, he was able to quickly judge where the Condor was going to be when he released his projectile, and the increased stat also helped with his aim – at least to a point. 

Miraculously, he hit the dusty monster it its right wing, breaking something that caused it to collapse, bringing the bird down to the ground in a bone-crunching, uncontrolled landing.  It didn’t die, but it was incapable of flight or escape, which was taken advantage of the next moment when Gregory appeared near it and finished it off with his knives.

Hmm… could be a viable strategy with my stats.

Unfortunately, he knew that even with his Physicality of 60, which was impressive for a healer, throwing rocks wasn’t necessarily a viable method of killing monsters.  It worked against the Condor because it was relatively weak defensively for a monster nearly at Level 40, but against something around or higher than his own Level?  It would probably be more of an annoyance than anything.  If he boosted his Physicality through Mana Transformation, that might make a difference, but he’d have to experiment to see if it would be worth it.

“Wait a minute, you have a Thrown Weapons Competency, too?” Gregory asked as they began moving forward again now that the Condors were eliminated.

“What?  Uh, no; why do you ask?”

The Rookie Infiltrator appeared confused, even as he sliced at one of the remaining Chunkeys.  “Then how did you throw that rock so accurately?  Unless you have a Celerity higher than my own, that just isn’t possible.”

Thaden didn’t say anything as he shrugged.

“Wait, you do, don’t you?”  The party leader chuckled.  “Well, the wonders never cease about you.  Too bad you can’t make that work to your advantage.”

Now it was the Lifewarden’s turn to be confused.  “What do you mean?”

“Because you don’t have a Competency for it, obviously.  That means you won’t be able to do more than a minimum amount of damage with anything you throw like that rock, which will hit a threshold at some point no matter how much Physicality you might have to back it up.  It’s why very few of us chose to become a Support Class, because they don’t get even the most basic of combat Competencies to defend themselves.  For instance, even if you had 10,000 in physicality and were the strongest person alive, without the Competency to back it up, you could punch a monster and only do so much damage to them before you hit the threshold for your Level.  As a Level 20 Support Class with 1,000 Physicality, you could punch a Level 1 monster and obliterate it, but against something the same Level as them?  Unless they were weak to physical damage like that Condor, it’d be more annoying to them than harmful.

“But you should know all of this from Training, right?  Or, well, there was a lot to learn, so I suppose you may have forgotten.”

Stupid blasted Training again.  Yet another way the System is set up to screw over Support Classes.  At least a lot of things make more sense now.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right.  Thank you for reminding me.”  He was fairly certain that he was being as transparent as Melindra had been outside in line when she denied mentioning that the Medial difficulty had been their objective, but Gregory seemed to accept it.  It could also be because they had been moving and came upon the next area, where there were more Condors that were attacking along with more Pebblers and Chunkeys, which consumed their attention as Thaden chucked rocks at them and Melindra impaled another one when it paused to start creating a dust cyclone.

The airborne monsters were annoying at first, as they always seemed to get at least one cyclone off, but after a few minutes of consistently encountering them, they got their attack method down to a science.  Thaden’s aim became better with the rocks he threw, which just so happened to prove that Gregory was right about the damage threshold he mentioned.  When he hit one in the body, he expected to at least crack some ribs if not pierce through its feathers to harm it even more, but it simply shifted in the air and seemed slightly slower as it took damage, but it wasn’t incapacitated.  Only when he hit one of their wings, which had fragile bones inside, was he able to do any lasting damage to it. 

He also experimented chucking a rock at one of the Chunkeys after eliminating his Celerity boost and replacing it with Physicality, and the results were less than stellar.  Even though his throw was fairly accurate against the stationary target, and it even managed to sneak around the stone armor plates on its body, his Physicality of just over 200 simply caused it to grunt in pain, likely bruising it badly but not doing any real, significant damage. 

Deciding not to dwell on yet another avenue of potential damage being closed to him, Thade concentrated on pushing his way through the dungeon, not stopping for anything but to chuck rocks at Condor wings and re-cast protection spells on his party. 

Before he knew it, he stopped at the threshold of the Boss area, which was at least three times the size of the previous one.  As he looked at the Boss, he was again reminded at how different this Medial difficulty version was to the Minimal one, as instead of a horde of monsters, there was only a single one.

Stonewinder Serpent (Boss) – Medial

Level 45

It was a large, segmented snake made of what appeared to be large boulders the size of a mid-sized car interconnected by the dark brown scaled body of the monster, allowing it to twist and turn, and it stretched at least 150 feet in length.  Its head was a mix between flesh and stone, the latter of which seemed to protect its most vital areas, so there wouldn’t be any lucky stabs through its skull into its brain, even through its eyes which appeared to be made of brightly lit red gemstones, like a ruby.

The others hesitated, but Thaden simply stepped inside.  “Alright, let’s get this over with.”