Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 35

Chapter 35

It felt strange for Thaden to think of someone else for a change, at least in terms of being in a party.  He didn’t count the experience in the Mausoleum with Sarah and the others because they had been essentially bystanders, but in this case it was the Gregory and his original party that were going to be doing the damage and leading things inside the dungeon.

That meant that the Lifewarden was relegated to simply being a Support Class and a healer; he found that he didn’t mind the thought of it as much as he thought, given how much he enjoyed going solo.  It wasn’t something that he thought he would do very often unless forced into it, such as this situation with the Evolution Assignment, but he wasn’t going to complain at the moment because he could finally test out some of his spells that had essentially been sitting on the shelf and collecting dust.

Looking at his list of never-before-used spells, he found that there weren’t as many as he expected.

Lesser Regrowth (Channeled)

Lesser Mana Rejuvenation (Single Cast)

Major Protective Guards (Single Cast)

Major Dampeners (Single Cast)

Major Protective Barrier (Single Cast)

Major Damage Shield (Single Cast)

Major Absorb Health (Single Cast)

Major Sacrifice (Single Cast)

Major Lifelink (Reserved)

Major Wardlink (Reserved)

Thaden was able to eliminate some of his spells from his Access Slots that he didn’t think he was going to need for this dungeon, especially since he wasn’t going to be doing it solo.  Major Wild Health Leach, Major Mana Transformation, and both Cure Afflictions were taken out, as – according to Gregory – there weren’t any debilitating afflictions that they had to worry about with the monsters inside the Gorge.  If he was wrong, it would be easy enough to shift his Access Slots around and put it back in, but Thaden hoped it wasn’t necessary. 

That left both his Fields, Regeneration, and Stacking Buffers, as the latter was something that he knew worked quite well from personal experience.  With 4 of his 9 Access Slots already filled, he needed to find which of his other spells he might want to try.

The first thing he considered were both Major Lifelink and Major Wardlink – and almost immediately discarded them.  Combining the Health or protection of two allies wasn’t necessary for someone like him; he could see the benefit of it with a healer that didn’t have unlimited Mana, as it would help to share the protection and healing benefits with more than one person, but it wasn’t exactly useful for Thaden.

Next, Lesser Regrowth was only good for regrowing lost limbs, and while he was sure it was important in some situation, the Lifewarden didn’t ever plan on things getting to that point.  He had more than enough healing and protection spells to prevent the loss of any limbs; having a channeled spell taking up an Access Slot all the time was unnecessary.

Major Sacrifice could be powerful in certain situations, but sacrificing the protection of a party member and making them immune to healing for a short time wasn’t what he had in mind right now.  In other words, it, too, wasn’t necessary at this time – as fun as it might be to try out.

The first spell he added to his Slots was Lesser Rejuvenation, as there wasn’t too much to consider there.

Lesser Rejuvenation (Single Cast): Grants a target a boost to their Mana regeneration for a limited time.

Mana Regeneration Rate: 5% of maximum Mana every 5 seconds

Duration: 60 seconds

Number of Targets: 1

Range: 40 feet

Casting Time: Instant

Mana Cost: 270

It wasn’t something that he’d ever need to use on himself, which was why he’d never upgraded it to Major strength, but the Lesser version was still powerful: 5% of maximum Mana replenished every 5 seconds for 60 seconds was impressive.  At least, he thought so, considering that he didn’t really have a frame of reference on normal Mana regeneration rates, but he thought it was fairly good considering that it had a Mana cost of 270 for a Lesser-strength spell.

He wanted it in his Access Slots because he knew that most of the damage that was inflicted upon monsters wasn’t done by the Fighter Class up front, but from the back-line party members that could dish out the damage quickly – as long as they had Mana, which was typically the stumbling block for most spellcasting classes like Mages.  Sure, they could create powerful fireballs or whatnot that could obliterate monsters, but if they couldn’t cast a spell like that more than once a minute as they waited for their Mana to replenish, their damage-per-second would fall flat. 

At least, that’s what he assumed was the case; his knowledge came from RPGs and video games back on Earth, so it could be different here.  Given how everything else had been fairly accurate to his prior knowledge, he figured it was the case here, too.

With four Access Slots left, he began to look at the five remaining options on his list of never-used spells.  Digging into the what they were, he realized that Major Protective Guards and Major Protective Barrier were very similar in what they did, with a few important distinctions.  

Major Protective Guards (Single Cast): Creates a series of full-body protective barriers around a single target that prevents (5) instances of all types of damage and afflictions from up to Level 80 sources; once damage is prevented, Major Protective Barrier disappears; cannot target self.

Number of Targets: 1

Range: 20 feet

Duration: 3 minutes

Casting Time: 10 seconds

Mana Cost: 500

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Major Protective Barrier (Single Cast): Creates a full-body protective barrier around a single target that prevents (4) instances of all types of damage and afflictions from up to Level 80 sources; once damage is prevented, Major Protective Barrier disappears; cannot target self.

Number of Targets: 1

Range: 50 feet

Duration: 5 minutes

Casting Time: 5 seconds

Mana Cost: 360

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Both of them prevented all damage or inflictions up to Level 80 – or Level 100 because of his Defensive Spellcasting Competency Advancements – but the Barrier only prevented 4 instances while the Guards prevented 5 instances.  Obviously, this seemed like a no-brainer to Thaden to choose the one that prevented 5 instances, but there were other things to consider.  First, Guards had a range of only 20 feet compared to 50 feet for Barrier, and the casting time for the former was 10 seconds as opposed to 5 seconds for the latter.  While Mana cost didn’t really matter all much to him, 500 for Guards versus 360 for Barrier was also a big difference, or at least it would be for most Support Classes.  Lastly, the Guards only lasted 3 minutes as opposed to 5 minutes for the Barrier, though again that didn’t matter all that much to Thaden because he would be casting it whenever he had the time and if it was off cooldown, regardless of Mana cost.

With those considerations in mind, he went with the Major Protective Barrier instead of the Guards even with the lower number of preventative instances, because he had no problem casting it again whenever it was necessary. 

That left Dampeners, Damage Shield, and Absorb Health.  Major Dampeners was based on the target of the spell losing Health, which would then start accumulating damage mitigation effects that could prevent up to a 50% maximum amount of damage to them.  Major Absorb Health returned 20% of inflicted damage as Health, sort of like a lifesteal effect he’d seen in some games.  Both spells were most effective if the target was losing Health and either needed it back without additional healing spells cast on them or to prevent them from dying as quickly.

For now, at least in this Minimal difficulty dungeon, Thaden didn’t think it was going to be necessary.  Why?  Because of the last spell, Major Damage Shield.  At a cost of 270 Mana and a casting time of 2 seconds, it provided 500 damage mitigation – and the cooldown was only 1 second thanks to a Competency Advancement.  That meant he could cast another one of these spells every 3 seconds if it was necessary, and 500 damage was a lot to mitigate; his experience with his Stacking Buffers proved that to be the case.  The only downside was that it didn’t prevent any afflictions, just damage, but that shouldn’t matter too much in this particular dungeon.

Regardless, if it was up to him, none of his party members would take even the slightest bit of damage to their Health throughout the entire delve.

After adding Major Damage Shield, he was left with two extra Access Slots – which he filled with Major Support Sprite and Major Defensive Sprite.  If healing was necessary, then he would change out the Support Sprite for Major Healing Burst and do some quick healing with the Sprite’s bonus; the same could be said for the Defensive Sprite, as he could change it out for anything that might be needed on the fly, such as a sudden affliction that needed to be cured.  His goal was to keep both Sprites around everyone, as they lasted 10 minutes, and would be invaluable – especially the Defensive Sprite – in preventing any sort of damage that might threaten them.

Prepared as he was going to be, Thaden cast Major Support Sprite on each of his party members as they made their way through to the first open-spaced area, followed by Major Defensive Sprite – but was immediately surprised when each of his Defensive Sprites was also cast upon a second target.

He’d forgotten about his Extended Protection Advancement, which extended single-target Defensive spells to protect an additional target.  He supposed since it was technically a Defensive spell, it still counted, even if the Sprite by itself didn’t do anything to protect them.

“What is this?” Melindra asked, staring at the glowing balls of light that hovered nearby them all. 

“Just something that boosts protection and healing; don’t worry about it,” he assured her and the rest of the party.  “I’m just getting started.”

Thaden then cast Major Damage Shield on everyone, which had a 2-second casting time and 1-second cooldown, followed by Major Stacking Buffers, which had a 10-second casting but no cooldown.  He followed that up with Major Protective Barrier which had a 5-second casting time and 5-second cooldown.  He only had to cast them each twice because he was able to cover all four of them with just two casts thanks to Extended Protection, and he didn’t need them on himself at the moment since he had already activated his Fields.

The Damage Shield had no duration to it, being a shield that would prevent 750 damage until it was all used up; Stacking Buffers had a 20-minute duration as it accumulated stacks of protective buffers, whereas Protective Barrier had a 10-minute duration and would prevent 6 instances of any damage or afflictions – all thanks to the Defensive Sprite boosting the effects of each spell.  He wasn’t sure how they stacked together, or which one would trigger first when someone was attacked, so he would have to see what happened once they found a monster that attacked them.

Lastly, as the pathway between the vegetation seemed to be opening into a larger area, he cast Lesser Rejuvenation on everyone to help replenish their Mana, which had its 5% of max Mana replenished every 5 seconds boosted to 9% thanks to the Support Sprite, and also tacked on Major Regeneration as an extra safeguard in case something actually got through the protection to damage them.  It only lasted 45 seconds, but he could refresh it at any point if he thought it was necessary.

“You are all now protected more than an actual tank, have a boost to your Mana regeneration, and have enough perpetual healing to handle anything these things can throw at you,” he told them as soon as he was complete and they looked at him in a mixture of confusion and astonishment.  “You will also accumulate stacks protective buffers when you damage monsters, even if it’s only a single points of damage.  In other words… go all out and don’t worry about getting hurt, let alone dying.”

The four of them looked at him skeptically, but Carlos just shrugged, lifted a large shield that he’d taken from his inventory on his left arm, and twirled a short sword in his right hand.  “Fine with me.  Anything to get through these trash mobs faster,” he said, smiling as he rushed into the clearing.  The others followed after him less enthusiastically, and Thaden brought up the rear.

A few seconds after Carlos had entered the clearing, he was attacked by what appeared to be a half-dozen large rats that ran out of the vegetation around the perimeter, camouflaged until that moment.

Gorge Grat – Minimal

Level 10

The Gorge Grats were as big as a medium-sized dog, with sharp, 6-inch long incisors that appeared capable of cutting through hard leather with ease.  Their claws could also be used as weapons, though it was obvious that 95% or more of their attacks were based around their bites – not that they had a chance to show that off, as Carlos was already in among them and showing why they considered these things trash mobs.  While they were quick, faster than most other monsters that size, they were also 10 Levels below the Untested Shieldman, a new Class that Thaden had just learned about as they were talking about their roles along the way. 

Normally, such a low-Level monster wouldn’t attack those of a higher Level, but that was only outside of a dungeon; inside of one, it didn’t matter if the monsters were all Level 1 and there was a party of Level 50 Contenders delving through – they would be attacked 100% of the time.

Carlos shouted as he used some sort of skill or spell, and a red aura flashed around him, the color clashing with the other spells that Thaden had used to protect him.  The Lifewarden could sense that it was a taunting type of skill that directed all the attention of the Grats on him, and he went to work blocking and bashing with his shield as he spun around to keep them all at bay, while slicing out with his sword at opportune times.  He killed two of them with shield bashes, which also glowed with an orange aura when he did it, which he figured was yet another skill he employed; two other Grats were killed by a single, deadly sword slice that practically severed the heads from his targets. 

By the time the rest of the group arrived, there wasn’t much to do, but both Melindra and David cast a spell anyway.  From David, who was an Initiate Conjurer, black-colored ropes appeared around one of the remaining Grats and started to constrict around it with extreme tension, causing bones to snap as the pressure became too great for the monster to handle.

The other Grat was impaled by a shard of stone that thrust up from below it, cast by Melindra the Apprentice Earth Mage, impaling it with enough force and width that it essentially burst apart.

“And I’m back to full Mana already,” the woman said in astonishment, staring at Thaden with wide eyes.  “How is that even possible?”

“It’s just an extra perk of partying with me,” the Lifewarden said with a shrug, not wanting to go into it too much.  “Anyway, enough talking – let’s get a move on.”

Carlos started to extract the loot from the corpses of the Grats, but after the first one gave him nothing, he said, “There’s no point in this, is there?”

Thaden shook his head.  “No; it’ll go faster this way, though.  No stopping, just move on ahead.”

Leaving the corpses behind, Carlos just shook his head at the loss of loot, but their new Support member could see the smile on his face.  He was eager to get through this entire dungeon in record time, which was certainly possible with Thaden’s help.

“Can’t stop, won’t stop – let’s go!” their Fighter said, rushing ahead.

“There’s still traps, you moron!”  Gregory made to hurry after Carlos in order to go first to check for the aforementioned traps, but was stopped by a hand on his arm.

“He can tank them with the protections I put on him; let him have his fun.”

The Rookie Infiltrator, a familiar Class that Aki had been in the first party he’d been a member of back in the Mausoleum, huffed in annoyance.  “That’s kind of my job, you know.”

“I know, but for now, join him in slaughtering these things and let him push through all the traps.  You mentioned that there aren’t any that would kill him in one shot normally, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Thaden assured him.  “Trust me on this, I won’t let him die – and we might even have a little fun while we’re at it.”  He pointed ahead, where Melindra and David were already disappearing down the pathway.  “Let’s use those extra points in Celerity you’ve got to catch up; there’s no point in letting them have all the fun now, is there?”

Gregory sighed, but the Lifewarden could see the edges of his mouth twitching at the prospect of being nigh-unkillable in the dungeon.  Without another word, they ran after the others, even as they heard the unmistakable sounds of fighting coming from up ahead.