Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 27

Chapter 27

As Thaden made his way deeper into The Den, he encountered more than just Shadowcoons – though the theme of the dungeon quickly made itself clear.

Ebon Vixen – Maximal

Level 62

Molemurk – Maximal

Level 65

Bringing his portable healing target along, the Lifewarden faced greater numbers of Shadowcoons at first, but then began to see what were essentially large black foxes that were only half the size of the raccoons, but were much faster and could teleport through shadows as part of their normal movements.  While the Shadowcoons could do that as well, he only saw it happen when they first attacked, otherwise they simply stood there and swiped at him incessantly.  The Vixens also didn’t have any sort of blinding effect to their attacks, but their tails acted like solid, shadowy extensions of their bodies that allowed them to attack from up to 10 feet away. 

Unfortunately for them, his Major Wild Health Leach could reach up to 20 feet away, so they were unable to prevent being randomly targeted by the leaching effect.

Eventually the Shadowcoons were no longer seen, only to be replaced by the Molemurks.  These particular underground monsters didn’t come out of recesses in the walls, but instead burrowed up from below in a shadowy maelstrom of dirt and stone that was magical in nature, which necessitated his use of his Major Absorption Field once again, cutting down on the healing – and therefore damage – he could inflict.  Still, they proved not to be much of a challenge and didn’t inflict any afflictions, so he didn’t have to worry about curing his blindness over and over again.  The only annoying thing about them was that they would burrow away after they hit 50% Health, as if retreating to regroup for the next attack, but then would come back a few minutes later and attack at double their previous speed. 

It was the wait that was annoying, not the extra attack speed – because that actually helped to kill them even faster from the reflected damage off his Fields.

Up to that point, nothing had really threatened him, as even the burrowing from underneath simply made his footing unstable he fell a few times, but he was never sucked under the ground like he was worried about after seeing the Molemurks the first time.  Even the traps that he encountered and inadvertently – or deliberately – triggered did nothing but blind him and attempt to damage him with spears of darkness, or in one case he fell into a 15-foot-deep hole in the ground, landing on sharp spikes made of shadows; thanks to his high Physicality, he was literally able to jump out of the hole and grab the edge, pulling himself up without any harm. 

It was only when he reached what he felt was the last portion of The Den that he had a slight bit of trouble with the newest monster he encountered.

Deerkin Gloomwielder – Maximal

Level 68

The Deerkin Gloomwielder, when he first saw it, made him chuckle at its appearance, because it looked just like a cute deer with dense black hair instead of a gentle brown color – except that it was standing on two legs.  It was also wearing what looked to be a black turban wrapped around its antlers, and a ragged, hole-filled black tunic covered its torso.

What made encountering the Deerkin a bit more trouble was that it was a magic-wielding caster, meaning that it stayed as far away from Thaden as was possible in the large caves they appeared.  That meant that his Leaching was unable to reach them, as the spell only affected monsters within 20 feet of himself, so he had to rely on his Absorption Field to reflect their damage. 

The secondary problem he had with them was the fact that as soon as he caught a glimpse of them, they shrouded the entire cave in darkness with a spell that his own spells’ glows barely penetrated.  As he made his way further into the dungeon, the illumination from the holes in the ceiling grew more sparse, until only a few areas had light with which to see, but the Deerkin eliminated even that much.  Now, that would’ve been bad enough, not being able to see, but the darkness apparently did two things for the magical, upright deer monsters.

First, the darkness apparently boosted their damage output, as if being bathed in the gloomy atmosphere enhanced the solidified bolts of shadows that were sent at him with the intent to tear him apart.  This was actually a good thing, as it increased the amount of damage being reflected back toward the strange casters.

In addition, the extra damage barely counteracted the darkness’ other effect on the Deerkin, which was to heal them.  It was a gradual Health increase, as if being fully submerged in the lack of illumination was enough to soothe their wounds; thankfully, it wasn’t enough to outpace their own damage output, though it did make their eventual deaths take at least 10 times longer than any of the others.  He estimated that it would take about an hour for them to finally receive enough reflected damage to push past their gradual healing, but he didn’t wait around to find out – because he took the first batch with him into the next cave, where they were joined by even more.  

That was the hardest part, out of everything that he had to face: Finding the exit.  When everything was covered in darkness, he stumbled over the uneven floor of the caves, and it was only when he was a foot or so away from the walls that he was able to follow them around to where thought the exit could be found, triggering shadow- and darkness-based traps along the way that simply delayed him further without actually harming him. 

As he passed through multiple caves, the Deerkin were joined by some of the previous monsters he’d fought, all with higher Levels than before.  Soon enough, at least an hour later, he was constantly being blinded by Shadowcoons that he was barely able to see before they were swallowed up by the ever-present darkness, his feet stumbled as they were tripped up by Murkmole attacks, and he was constantly stabbed at by black fox tails that he only barely saw as they struck him, only to be stopped by his Fields. 

He lost track of his original Shadowcoon that he had buffed with increased Health, so he was forced to grab onto the paw of a different one as it attacked him, barely avoiding its claws, and his strength was just barely enough to pull it forward as it became unbalanced.  Gripping its fur along the neck he swung himself up to its back, where he began to ride it like a very grumpy and insane horse.  Even as it literally turned its head all the way around in an attempt to bite him like some sort of demon-possessed victim, he was already casting spells on it one after another.  A Support Sprite, Health Augmentation, and Wild Health Leach all landed upon it one after another, followed by a plethora of healing spells that started to leach Health from the monsters around him.

The Shadowcoon tried to buck him off, even rolling on the floor to scrape him off, but his Physicality was high enough to hold on; any damage that would’ve been done to him by being literally rolled over by something that outweighed him by at least 1,000 pounds was negated by his Repulsion Field.  Unfortunately, he had to maintain his raccoon-back position because as soon as he let go, he would likely lose sight of his healing target.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed on its back, as his entire focus was in maintaining the spells on himself for protection, the spells on the Shadowcoon, and the healing that was doling out more and more leaching Health damage to the monsters around him.  In complete darkness, unable to see more than a foot or two around himself, his world consisted of smelly black raccoon fur and the oily feeling that surrounded his fingers as he held onto the monster with a death grip.

It wasn’t until he felt pain that his focus snapped, and he realized that he’d been taking an inordinate amount of leaching Health damage over the last few seconds.  He immediately stopped any healing he was doing to the Shadowcoon under him, and instead worked on maintaining his own Health as it continued to take hits every few seconds.  Once all of the Health leaching stopped, he threw himself off his impromptu mount and collapsed to the dirt below, his legs and hands strained from holding onto the monster for an unknown amount of time.

He sat there for a few minutes, recovering from the exertion, before he realized that the only sound he could hear were the growls of the only remaining Shadowcoon in the cave.  He cast Major Cure Physical Affliction a few times in rapid succession, something he hadn’t bothered with too much while riding on the back of the monster, as he couldn’t see much anyway, and he saw light for the first time in what felt like days.

As he stood up and looked around the cave, which only had a single spotlight of illumination shining in from the center of it, he saw the shadowy forms of monster corpses piled up around him, while further away were dozens of bodies of the Deerkin that had been attacking him from afar.  He wasn’t sure how many he saw, as it was still dark where the only light shining into the room couldn’t reach, but he estimated that there were at least 150 corpses, perhaps more.

My impatience is going to be the death of me one day.

Still, he couldn’t help but be satisfied with what happened, even if he hadn’t planning on accumulating so many monsters all at once again like he did in the Magma Dungeon.  Something about being plunged into complete darkness and having to wait for an hour or more for the Deerkin to die made him extremely impatient, as he realized that if he didn’t do something drastic, he could be inside the dungeon for many hours, if not days while he waited for them to kill themselves, room by room.

Beginning to extract the loot from the bodies as he consistently cured his blindness, the remaining Shadowcoon started to whittle away its own Health.  Because it still had a Health Augmentation on it, it took longer than usual for it to die to reflected damage, but it was still only about 12 minutes of time, which gave him more than enough opportunity to finish extracting all of the loot from the bodies.

Along with every monster he had killed before he decided to forge ahead and gather them all up again, he whistled in appreciation as he took in his haul.

Extractions complete!

Loot obtained:

138 Gold, 13 Silver, 52 Copper coins

9 Lesser Shadow Resistance Ring (Uncommon)

2 Leather Jerkin of Dusk (Uncommon)

2 Leather Pants of Dusk (Uncommon)

2 Leather Gloves of Dusk (Uncommon)

1 Leather Boots of Dusk (Uncommon)

1 Leather Hood of Dusk (Uncommon)

1 Shadow Silk Cape of Dusk (Rare)

1 Gloom Dirk (Rare)

1 Staff of Night (Rare)

1 Harp of Twilight Dreams (Epic)

1 Stiletto of Dark Agony (Epic)

1 Muffled Boots of Stifled Silence (Epic)

1 Shadow Silk Robe of Darkness’ Embrace (Epic)

147 Shadow-touched Fur (Uncommon)

72 Eyes of the Unseen (Uncommon)

35 Shadow Silk Remnants (Uncommon)

168 Shadowcoon Claws (Common)

105 Ebon Vixen Tail (Common)

96 Molemurk Teeth (Common)

60 Deerkin Antlers (Common)

The first thing he noticed was that he had gained a lot more loot from this dungeon than he did the Magma Dungeon, at least with just a single run through it.  He wasn’t sure if the higher rarity loot was due to his higher Fortuity or the fact that this was a Maximal difficulty dungeon; regardless of the reason, it didn’t really matter in the end. 

Ignoring all the crafting components, he obtained a total of 9 Lesser Shadow Resistance Rings, which were similar to the Heat Resistance Rings he obtained in the Magma Dungeon, but instead of only 15% resistance, they were 20%, and they required someone to be Level 50 instead of 40.  He also received what appeared to be a full set of Leather armor that was only useable by Scout Classes, including a Shadow Silk Cap, a Gloom Dirk, a Stiletto of Dark Agony, and Muffled Boots of Stifled Silence – the latter two of which were Epic rarity.  There was also a Staff of Night, which only Mages and Control Classes could wield, as well as – strangely – a Harp of Twilight Dreams that was only for Control Classes and heavily boosted their Personality stat and effectiveness of any sleep-type control spells by 75%.  He hadn’t really looked into what exactly Control Classes could do, but he could only assume this type of boost was good.

The one thing he could actually use – other than the Lesser Shadow Resistance Ring – was the Shadow Silk Robe of Darkness’ Embrace, which was amazingly only for Support Classes.

Shadow Silk Robe of Darkness’ Embrace

Rarity: Epic

Class Restrictions: Support

Level Restriction: 60

Physical Damage Resistance: 5

Magical Damage Resistance: 10

+70 Mentality

+9 Celerity

+100% Increase in effectiveness of all Support spells if target is in a low-light environment

+10% Shadow Resistance

Overall, it was a much better robe than the Dark Abyss Robe of the Dead he received in the Mausoleum of Despair, as it gave 55 more Mentality and 7 more Celerity while taking away the 2 in Physicality; the main benefit, though, was that it didn’t have a Personality penalty.  Even though it was all-black and practically screamed “dark, evil wizard”, it didn’t have the same kind of negative connotation associated with one that was made for people of a necromantic persuasion.  It was also extremely comfortable, as it felt like a wearing a soft hug.

Thinking about the three dungeons he’d spent any considerable time in and their loot, he started to form a picture of how their loot breakdown seemed to work.  The Mausoleum seemed to have items that were primarily geared toward Mages and Scouts, such as Necromancers and Assassins; the Magma Dungeon appeared to be focused on Fighters and perhaps some Mages; while The Den was again focused on Scouts.  That didn’t mean that items useable by other Classes didn’t drop, but it wasn’t as common; for instance, out of everything that dropped in the last two dungeons, he was only able to use two things that weren’t Resistance Rings useable by all Classes, the Wolfen Magma Cap and now the Shadow Silk Robe of Darkness’ Embrace. 

What he needed to find was a dungeon that catered toward Support Classes, though that might be difficult going by just the name.  He hadn’t been looking into the types of loot that could be gained from any of the dungeons while he had been studying the maps and dungeon listings back in Forgestone, but the next opportunity he got to do such a thing, he would certainly devote some time to it.  There had to be a dungeon out there somewhere that would be good for him to visit for more Class-appropriate gear.

Now that he was done with his looting, it was time to move on.  The tunnel leading from the current cave was larger than the others he’d seen, by at least twice the size, which he figured could only mean he was getting close to the end of the dungeon—or was there already.  With his protection prepared and his spells ready to go for whatever awaited him, he walked through the tunnel as an oppressive feeling immediately enveloped him.

Huh.  This should be interesting.