Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 9

Chapter 9

As he could’ve guessed, there was Magma in the Magma Dungeon.  There was, in fact, a lot of it. 

Similar to the Mausoleum of Despair, his path through the entrance tunnel was relatively short before it opened up into a room; the biggest difference between the Magma Dungeon and the Mausoleum was that the room was actually a circular cave that was approximately 150 feet wide and half that tall, with magma spilling out in waterfalls to pool on the stone below, though these pools never expanded past a certain point.  The walls were half-covered in oozing magma that spilled into wide trenches, disappearing into what he could only assume was a great reservoir of magma somewhere far below.

Or it simply disappeared with whatever dungeon magic the whole place seemed to utilize.  He didn’t know, nor particularly cared to know, because he wasn’t planning on jumping in those trenches anytime soon.

He could tell that it was also quite a bit hotter than the large cavern outside, based on the heat lines that seemed to distort the very air in the cave.  Thankfully, as soon as he entered the dungeon, the Bonus Traits from a few of his Achievements kicked in and gave him large boosts to his stats, a good chunk of them coming from Dungeon Delver III which boosted them all by 25% of their base value.

Health – 560/560

Mana – 2,790/2,790

Physicality – 56

Celerity – 37

Mentality – 279

Personality – 1

Fortuity – 164

Even with the bonuses, his Personality was still at 1 because of his Equipment, but that was again fine with him.  His Mentality had gone up by more than 100, though he’d already been able to cast all of his spells with no trouble.  What made the most difference, however, was that his Fortuity was up to 164 – which equated to a 49.2% chance for his Fields to reflect 5% of the damage prevented.  He also had a 49.2% chance for his Support spells like healing to be cast twice in a row, but he didn’t think that was going to matter all that much in the dungeon. 

He wasn’t planning on getting hurt, after all. 

Looking out around the cave, Thaden didn’t spot any monsters – but that didn’t mean much when he’d seen the Magma Salamanders come out of the magma outside.  Sure enough, as soon as he started to make his way around the pooling waterfalls of magma—magmafalls?—he was attacked from two sides as Level 41 Magma Salamanders slithered their way out of the pools and attacked him. 

Not wanting to waste too much time, he quickly cast Major Health Reduction on both Salamanders, refreshed the Major Regeneration and Major Death Ward on himself, and then around the entire room, passing by the other pools of magma.  Another dozen Salamanders popped out as he passed by, and after casting Major Health Reduction on all the new arrivals, he eventually stopped in the middle of the room to let them do their thing.

With his increased chance of reflecting damage so that nearly every other hit against his Fields activated the process, as well as their 15% reduction in Health, it only took 20 minutes for them all to die.  It was actually much faster than he expected, but then he realized that his Stronger Healing Advancement was probably playing a role.

Stronger Healing Advancement – All Support spells now heal or reduce 50% more Health

So, instead of a 15% reduction in their health, it was actually around 22.5%.  The extra 7.5% reduction might not sound like a lot, but it evidently made a difference in the outcome of the fight.

Even so, by the time he extracted all the loot from the Salamanders and looked at his notifications, which indicated that he’d earned a whopping 5 PICK from each of them instead of the 4 PICK which he’d gotten from the Level 40 versions and the loot was only a slightly higher amount of coinage, it had taken him over 25 minutes to go through the entire room.  While that wasn’t exactly slow, he remembered how many rooms the Mausoleum possessed and it had taken him hours to carefully slog through the entire thing.  If the Magma Dungeon had anywhere near the same amount of “rooms”, then it could take him more than a day to get through it – and he didn’t think he would be able to stay awake and alert that long. 

Then there was the probability that the monsters would get stronger, meaning that they likely had higher starting Health pools, and would therefore take longer to kill using reflected damage.  He could be looking at an even longer delve through the dungeon to get to the end if that was the case.

This is probably stupid, but….

Whether it was impatience, the lack of progress over the last few weeks, or simple confidence (or overconfidence, depending on how it worked out), Thaden made a decision that he probably should’ve considered a bit more before implementing it.  Regardless of the reasoning, he ended up taking what he’d done outside the dungeon entrance and inside this first cave before he sandwiching the two methods together… and then supersized it.

Walking quickly toward the tunnel leading toward what he could only assume was the next cave, he started jogging when he saw that it was only a short passage to his destination.  He felt the stone depress under his foot at one point and the lefthand wall suddenly exploded with flaming shrapnel, before magma oozed out – but he kept moving, only stumbling slightly as the trap damage was blocked by his Fields.  He ran into the next cave and saw that it was similar in size and the magma-filled magma hazards, but there was also something new that wasn’t in the previous room.

Magma Wolf – Minimal

Level 42

The Magma Wolf was 8 feet tall at its shoulder and appeared to be a molten stone, canine-shaped monster with flames flickering around its enormous paws; there were spikes of dark obsidian-looking stone around its neck like a nightmarish collar, and its sharp teeth were also made of the same substance.  Its scratchy howl reminded him of nails scraping against a chalkboard, and he winced when a half-dozen of them howled simultaneously as he ran into the center of the cave. 

The Wolves were also quite fast; they almost seemed to flash across the cave as they attacked in a pack, tearing into him with snarls and growls that normally would’ve intimidated him if he wasn’t preoccupied with navigating his way around the magma pools.

As he ran the cave, a half-dozen Magma Salamanders also appeared and attempted to attack him, but he was already heading toward the exit to the next tunnel with the Wolves nipping ineffectually at his heels.  He made sure to quickly cast Major Health Reduction on each of the monsters he caught the attention of, so that he wouldn’t have to worry about doing it later.

The third cave held similar monsters, if perhaps two more than the previous cave, and he simply made a lap around the entire thing and kept going.  Nothing stepped in front of him to block his way, as they likely thought that it was better to chase down fleeing prey from its unprotected rear – but that inaccurate thinking simply let him continue jogging casually through the subsequent caves without any opposition. 

Thaden observed as he ran how their base Levels steadily increased from cave to cave, until he was encountering ones that were of a higher Level than he was.  Eventually, at about a dozen caves in, he encountered a third type of monster – which almost made him hesitate and stop when he saw it.

Magma Elemental – Minimal

Level 47

The Magma Elemental looked like someone had made a Baked Alaska dessert and then let it melt.  It was as if someone had dropped an egg on the floor and the heat from the stone cooked it, except that this egg was the size of an elephant and the yolk was actually just a bunch of magma.  There was a central hump that rose about 4 feet into the air, but the rest of it spread out up to 15 feet in all directions, and it moved like some sort of ooze as it followed after Thaden.  The magma it was comprised of undulated as it moved, as if it was constantly churning inside of it like a cement mixer; what he was getting at was that it was disturbing to look at, especially when it had two brightly glowing gemstone like eyes each the size of his fist, and a mouth that practically cut it in half when it was opened.

It attacked from range initially, flinging large clumps of its body – which it then regenerated magically – at him from across the cave, which thankfully slid right off his Fields.  When he got close to one, it bunched up a portion of its bulk and attempted to smash him into the stone floor, but that was also ineffective, of course.  The problem was that he wasn’t even sure if the Magma Elementals were even being hurt by the reflective damage, because it was it was moving so constantly that any visible damage was essentially nonexistent.

But he’d already come that far, so he figured he might as well see it through and find out later.

Along the way and as he pushed further, he triggered more than a dozen other traps, one of which caused a waterfall of magma block the way forward, but he took a chance and dove through it, trusting that it would be considered trap damage – and so it proved.  The rest of the traps were all explosions or magma-related, but none of them did more than make him stumble.

After one point where he looked behind him as he ran and saw at least a hundred monsters following after him, he decided not to look again because he didn’t want to lose his nerve.  Nearly an hour into his jog, his breathing was becoming ragged and he thought that he’d have to stop soon enough or risk collapsing of exhaustion into a pool of magma somewhere, but that was when his latest tunnel led to a much larger cave than he’d seen up to that point.  It wasn’t quite the largest room or space he’d seen in a dungeon, which was the final Boss room in the Mausoleum at Maximal difficulty where he faced Nehetmo, Monarch of the Dead, but it was nearly half the size. 

Up to that point, as he jogged through the whole dungeon trailing the monsters he passed by in his wake, he hadn’t really paid much attention to their Levels.  Since all of them were similar monsters that didn’t change all that much visually as they increased in Level, he hadn’t realized he was coming to the end of the dungeon until he slid to a stop before he ran headlong into the river of magma flowing through the middle of the cave.  

As he was rapidly surrounded by the monsters that had been following him the entire time, his vision was nearly blocked from seeing what appeared to be 50-foot statue made out of dark stone seemingly come to life.

Magma Colossus (Boss) – Minimal

Level 53

The statue seemed to be a decoration attached to the far wall, but he watched as it started to glow from within, and pretty soon its joints began to seep Magma like some sort of lubrication, allowing it to break free from the stone perimeter of the cave.  It was technically humanoid in appearance, as it had a head, arms, a torso, and it stood on two legs, but that was where the similarity ended.  Its face was almost demonic-looking as it was frozen in an open-mouthed snarling position with glowing red eyes, and it possessed a total of six arms that each had fists that were size of a compact car.  The legs were also extremely thick and more like tree trunks than legs, and they only bent far enough at the knee for the Colossus to move forward; he doubted that it could lift them more than a dozen feet off the ground at one time – though that would be plenty enough to squash him like a bug under its bulk. 

As it stomped forward, slowly but steadily, the stone floor beneath him shook, threatening to topple him, but he managed to keep his feet.  Even with its height, he quickly lost sight of most of it as he was inundated by the monsters who were finally getting a chance to attack him now that he’d stopped; that being said, he was able to see it set foot in the magma river and splash across it, as the magma proved to be absolutely no hindrance to it. 

Soon enough, even that sight of it was blocked from his view as all the monsters piled on top of each other, getting in each other’s way, but also giving it everything they had to bite at him.  He was constantly refreshing Major Health Reduction on every single monster he could that surrounded him, but something else was happening that he hadn’t planned for. 

It started to get uncomfortably hot.

The stone and flesh of the monsters surrounding him acted like an insulator for all the flames and magma that comprised their bodies, and he began to have trouble breathing as it felt like he was breathing fire.  His skin began to blister as the heat all around of him became too great for his Physicality to handle, though his constant use of Major Regeneration and even his Afterglow Advancement were healing the damage as quickly as it was happening. 

That was the point where he felt the shaking from the Colossus’ steps suddenly stop nearby.  He was too busy trying to breathe and the pain from his constant burns was addling his mind to pay attention to what was happening, when an enormous fist appeared from above him and slammed into his Fields, which deflected the downward motion off to the side instead of hurting him.  The same couldn’t be said for the monsters that had been in the way of the strike, however, as a half-dozen Salamanders and Wolves were practically flattened under the deflected fist – but neither the Colossus nor the other monsters seemed to care as others just took their place. 

Then another fist came down, then another and another in rapid succession, as all six of the giant statue’s arms brought down a rain of destruction upon him – and killed dozens of monsters in the process.  The reduction of so many insulating bodies around him reduced the heat enough that he felt like he could take a few breaths before he struggled with the heat again as more monsters replaced those that had died, but it was enough to keep up with the healing his spells were doing. 

After the first barrage of fists slammed down, Thaden couldn’t stand up any longer as the ground shook all around him, and he was forced to sit down and hold on as best he could as the Boss continued to rain its fists down without stopping.  More and more of the monsters that had followed through the dungeon met their fate at the literal hands of the more powerful monster, but they were so focused on trying to get to the Contender in their midst that they didn’t try and avoid the blows.

The constant heat slowly subsided as the numbers thinned out, but then the slower Magma Elementals arrived.  The pure magma of their bodies coming near him ramped the heat up even further, until his robe literally started to ignite; he took it off and stashed it in his Inventory rather than risk losing it, but then his hair and skin started to catch fire, and he was suddenly blinded as his eyes started to liquify in his sockets.  Almost insensate from the pain, he managed to scrounge enough thoughts together to spam Major Cure Physical Affliction over and over, which helped to eliminate the burning affliction before his Regeneration healed the damage. 

His sight came back to him every once in a while, allowing him to see that, despite being made of magma, the Elementals couldn’t withstand a colossal fist to their oozing forms any better than the Wolves and Salamanders, and they splashed apart as they were hit by the Colossus like a sledgehammer smashing into a watermelon. 

He lost track of time as he wallowed in pain, constantly healing and curing himself, struggling to stay upright from the constant pounding of the stone near him, until he eventually felt the majority of the heat dissipate over the course of a few minutes.  He looked around him for the first time in what felt like hours, only to watch as the last Wolf that was somehow avoiding getting flattened by the Colossus fall under its fist, joining the carnage of body parts and magma that littered the floor all around him. 

Looking up, he saw the Colossus clearly for the first time, and the damage that had been reflected upon it by his Fields was clear to see, as large rents in its exterior were leaking magma at an alarming rate and it appeared to be on its last legs.  Another barrage of fists slammed down on him and was deflected, and he watched as another few cuts sliced through its leg, making it buckle.  He expected it to fall at that point, as it appeared ready to collapse, but it did something that confused him thoroughly.

It turned around and limped away.

What?  Is it running from me?  I didn’t think they could even do that.

The confusion lasted for all of a minute as he watched it step into the river of magma and stood there as the molten rock seemed to flow up its legs and over its torso before covering its arms and even its head.  In less than 30 seconds, it was fully covered in glowing magma, before it all suddenly sloughed off, falling back into the river…

…revealing a fully healed Magma Colossus that was ready to dish out some more damage with its fists.