Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Globs of magma splashed off the Major Repulsion Field Thaden had protecting him even as he took a step back, watching what looked like a giant black lizard with glowing red veins covering its exterior land on the island. 

Magma Salamander – Minimal

Level 40

Thankfully, the excess magma that erupted from the pool below when the Salamander shot onto the stone skittered off the surface like water in a hot pan, falling back into the roiling pool below.  Meanwhile, the Lifewarden stared at the monster that abruptly lunged at him with a sharp tooth-filled mouth dripping with burning saliva.  At nearly 5 feet tall and twice that in length, it didn’t have to strain to aim straight for his face, which made Thaden flinch slightly – but the Salamander was repulsed as soon as it came in contact with his defensive Field.  It didn’t get pushed back much, but it was enough for it to reset and try again – only for it to be pushed back a second time.  It wasn’t until the third strike that it flinched back after smacking into the Field, and he could tell that one of the Bonus Traits from his Lifewarden Class had activated.

34.8% Chance to reflect 5% of prevented damage from defensive spells (From Lifewarden)

His high Fortuity stat was the only reason why there was a little bit over a one in three chance to reflect the damage from a monster, which was important for Thaden…

…especially when he couldn’t deal damage normally.  Against the Undead in the Mausoleum of Despair, he was able to cast healing spells that did damage to them, but for everything else that wouldn’t work.  But with his ability to reflect 5% of the damage from prevented damage, he had a way to kill things.

Eventually.  As an experiment, Thaden simply stood still while the Salamander continued to attack him with repeated bites to the face before it backed up and basically spit up flaming goo at him, which ended up being blocked by his Major Absorption Field.  This was then followed up by more biting, then more spitting, and again with the biting.  There wasn’t much variety to its incessant attacks, but that was just fine with him – because he used this time to check on his spells and the Access Slots that were being filled.

Having recently fought against the Undead, his spells were focused on doing as much damage via healing spells as possible.  With this new dungeon, however, that was definitely not the priority, so he decided to rearrange some things.  Thankfully, while he was doing this, he realized that the heat wasn’t quite as stifling as it was before being attacked by the Salamander, which he quickly found was because his Physicality was increased by +5 due to another Bonus Trait from his another of his Achievements.

When fighting solo, all your stats are increased by +5 (From Monster Hunter V)

If he was inside the actual dungeon, to bonuses from his stats would’ve been even higher due to multiple Achievements, but he hadn’t even gotten there yet.  He was tangentially aware that it was only due to his Physicality being so high – for a Support Class, at least – that he wasn’t dying from the extreme heat in the cavern already, and any little bit would help.

Focusing his attention on his Access Slots, he looked at what was already assigned – and what he had available.

Available Spells: (You currently have 0/9 Access Slots available)

Lesser Resurrection (Single Cast) – 2 Access Slots

Lesser Aura of Life (Reserved) – 1 Access Slot

Lesser Regrowth (Channeled) – 1 Access Slot

Lesser Protective Barrier (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Lesser Healing Circle (Channeled) – 1 Access Slot

Lesser Mana Rejuvenation (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Lesser Damage Shield (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Repulsion Field (Channeled) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Regeneration (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Absorption Field (Channeled) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Mass Healing (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Mass Regeneration (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Protective Guards (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Cure Physical Affliction (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Death Ward (Single Cast) – 2 Access Slots *

Major Cure Mental Affliction (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot *

Major Support Sprite (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Defensive Sprite (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Health Reduction (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Negation Zone (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Health Augmentation (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Absorb Health (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Dampeners (Single Cast) – 1 Access Slot

Major Healing (Channeled) – 1 Access Slot

Obviously, he wasn’t going to touch the two defensive Fields, as they were the only spells that were keeping him alive while he was being attacked.  He also wanted to keep Major Death Ward despite it requiring 2 of his Access Slots – just in case something went wrong and he made a mistake at some point.  Both Cure Affliction spells were also important, because he wasn’t sure what he would encounter inside the dungeon that might end up afflicting him with something that would require curing, but he wanted to be ready.  Those spells, when added all together, totaled 6 Access Slots – leaving him 3 more to play with.

He didn’t need his Major Mass Healing or Major Mass Regeneration, because they were more likely to help the monsters around him rather than simply be a means to heal himself, but he decided to keep Major Regeneration as his only healing spell in case he needed it – leaving him 2 Access Slots now.

He didn’t need any more protective spells since he was covered fairly well by his two Fields, but he decided to add one more safety net just in case it was needed: Major Negation Zone. 

Major Negation Zone (Single Cast): Creates an immobile, targeted area that prevents all types of damage and afflictions from being inflicted upon all targets from up to Level 90 sources for a limited time.

Range: 100-foot radius of target area within 150 feet of caster

Duration: 60 seconds

Casting Time: Instant

Mana Cost: 500

Cooldown: 10 minutes

It might seem like a waste, but as he concentrated on the spell in his Character Report, he was fairly certain that Negation Zone even applied to environmental damage – so if he fell into something like the magma pool, he would have 60 seconds to find a way out.  He hoped never to have a need to use it like that, but he’d rather have it in his back pocket than not.  And slotting it in now was necessary because of its cooldown, which activated as soon as he added it to the Access Slots.

For the last Access Slot, Thaden added something that he’d only experimented with a little in the past, mainly because it wasn’t worth the Slot space against the Undead.

Major Health Reduction (Single Cast): Reduces a target’s maximum Health.

Number of Targets: 1

Range: 50 feet

Duration: 30 minutes

Magnitude: 15% of maximum Health

Casting Time: 10 seconds

Mana Cost: 180

It wasn’t much, but a 15% decrease in a monster’s Health was better than nothing – especially when all the damage he could do was a chance to reflect 5% of the damage prevented by his Fields.  Thinking about that, and now that he had adjusted his Access Slots to something more appropriate, he realized that he hadn’t thrown on his equipment yet.  He hadn’t worn them in a while because of their hit to his Personality stat, but now there was no one around to see him.  It felt strange getting half-naked while he was actively being attacked, but he slipped the Dark Abyss Robe of the Dead over his head, placed the Casket Ring of the Undead on his right pointer finger, and managed to get the Shadow Necklace of the Grave around his neck.  Almost immediately he felt the 60 extra points in his Mentality as his mind cleared, the extra 7 Physicality that reduced the feeling of the heat in the cavern even further, and experienced a slight increase in his movement speed from the 7 points in Celerity.  Of course, his Personality was in the crapper at 1 now, but that didn’t matter if there was no one around.

Thaden turned his attention back to the Salamander which was still trying to attack him.  Looking closer at the Level 40 monster, he noticed that the information above its head was faded in color, not quite grey, but not as vibrant as something would be if it was the same Level or higher than his own.  He remembered Diallo telling him that, in a party at least, anything 5 Levels or below didn’t give any PICK to him, but now he was wondering if that was different for when he was solo.  He’d already noticed that anything far below him in Level left him alone and had a greyed-out name above their heads, but this Magma Salamander didn’t, so he could only assume that it was still worth something to him.

After approximately 10 minutes of constant attacks while he simply stood there, the Salamander was looking ragged from the reflected damage imposed upon it, and it was even bleeding from multiple bite wounds that seemed to open all along its body as if some invisible ghost was biting it.  He could only assume that the damage reflected took the form of the actual attack, which he guessed made sense instead of it being general damage.  However, that was also slightly worrying because he didn’t see any burn marks over its body from the flaming goo that he was sure had been reflected at least a few times over since the fight started.  He could only assume that it was immune to fire and heat because, well, it had literally shot out from the magma pool near the island.

Regardless, it only took another minute or so of it essentially killing itself with reflected damage before it collapsed to the stone of the island.  Normally he waited to see his notifications until later, but he was curious as to what exactly he earned from this monster.

You have slain a Magma Salamander – Minimal – Level 40!

You have received 4 PICK!

The Magma Salamander gave him PICK alright, but it was only 4; when he needed over 13,000 in order to get to the next Level, he would have to kill thousands of them to get there.  He was slightly surprised that he didn’t earn any additional PICK for being solo, as he was used to seeing, but he could only assume that it being a lower Level negated that kind of bonus.

Before he did anything else, he leaned down next to the corpse of the Salamander and said, “Extract,” remembering what he’d been taught by Sarah and her crew about looting monsters – which he was still sore about even now, as he had passed up looting thousands of Undead in his time in the Mausoleum.  Still, there was no going back and changing things, but at least he could start doing things correctly now.

Within seconds, the corpse of the Salamander faded into nothingness and he felt an addition to his Inventory as more than a single somethings was dropped into it.  

Extraction complete!

Loot obtained:

6 Silver, 10 Copper coins (Reduced reward for Level discrepancy)

1 Heat-resistant Salamander Hide (Uncommon) (Reduced reward for Level discrepancy)

2 Magma Salamander Teeth (Common) (Reduced reward for Level discrepancy)

It wasn’t great, but it was also better than nothing – which was what he normally would’ve gotten from a monster before he knew about the inventory and looting system.  Thaden wondered how much better of a reward it would’ve been if there wasn’t such a Level discrepancy; he supposed he would end up finding out once he got into the dungeon. 

As he began walking across the stone island and onto the bridge connecting it to the next one, he noticed that it felt slightly hotter; he realized that his bonus to his stats when he was fighting solo was no longer active, but it wasn’t so bad as it had been when he first walked in due to the equipment he had put on.  It still made him sweat, but he didn’t feel as if he was being cooked alive – even if his robe was uncomfortably warm. 

The next island had another Salamander shoot out of the magma to attack him… but he kept walking.  As it attempted to maul him from behind, he passed over the island and the next bridge, with it following along like an extremely dangerous lost puppy.  At the next island, a second one popped out to join the first, but he ignored it as he continued to steadily walk over the stone pathway that led to the dungeon.  He didn’t want to spend hours waiting for each individual monster to kill itself on his Fields, so this felt like the better idea.

Fifteen minutes later, he was on the last island before the tunnel leading into the dungeon – which was three times larger than the others – when a total of four Salamanders shot out of the magma to land in front of him.  Unfortunately for Thaden, they immediately blocked the way forward, meaning that he would have to push his way through them in order to go any further, which he didn’t want to have to do and inadvertently harm himself through self-inflicted damage.  So, he simply stood there and waited for them to hurt themselves on his Fields; well, them and the dozen other Salamanders he had picked up along the way, trailing after him with the intent of biting or burning him.

It took a total of thirty minutes for them all to kill themselves with reflected damage; the only reason it required that much time was the fact that they were getting in each other’s way.  He was reminded of when he had been surrounded by Undead near the Mausoleum, though at that time there had been hundreds of monsters; the biggest difference, though, was that these ones were of a much higher Level and had higher Health as a result, meaning that they didn’t go down that easy.  They were also strong and heavy, meaning that the repulsion effect of his Major Repulsion Field didn’t really do much to hurt them; all of his damage was now due to the reflective effect of his Class.

Once they were all dead, he extracted them all, gaining only slight variations on the amount of coins and Teeth for each one, but only about every fourth Salamander had one of the Uncommon Heat-resistant Salamander Hides.  In all, he earned just over a gold coin in cold, hard cash, 35 Magma Salamander Teeth, and 5 of the Hides.

It wasn’t too bad for an hour’s work, but the 68 PICK in total that he’d received for killing 17 of the monsters wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for.  He began to understand a little better how difficult it was for the other Contenders to Level-up, because from what he understood, this type of PICK earnings was fairly common when in a party due to the total being split up between each member.  There were some incentives to encourage partying together, of course, the most important part being that it was far safer, but the drawbacks were equally as impactful.

After he’d extracted the loot from all the corpses and he’d checked his notifications for any other information he might have missed, Thaden was ready to keep going.  With nothing now standing in his way to the tunnel, he walked across the last bit of raised stone and made his way up to it.  Taking a deep breath, as he would be venturing into the unknown here, he took a step forward and crossed the threshold of the tunnel – when time seemed to stand still for a moment.

Magma Dungeon

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal    Medial    Maximal

Dungeon Slayer World First Achievement override!

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal    Medial    Maximal

Thaden wasn’t prepared to attempt any of the harder difficulties, so he quickly chose “Minimal” – and time sped up again as his foot finished its step.  Looking behind him, there was a hazy distortion covering the entrance of the tunnel, while ahead of him was the same tunnel that he’d been walking into.

You have entered the Magma Dungeon (Minimal Difficulty)!

Magma Dungeon

Current Difficulty: Minimal   Medial   Maximal

Recommended Party Size: 5

Recommended Party Levels: 40 - 50

The information he received when he looked at his notifications was identical to what he knew about the dungeon from the information he had been provided – which made him think how that information had been obtained.  Did someone visit here just to check it out and then leave?  He could only assume that was the case, though that would also mean that someone high-Leveled would’ve had to do it, as any of the other Contenders would probably die getting even this far at their current Levels.  It made sense when he remembered seeing Level 100 under the Vice-Leader’s name, but then why was there no more information?  Did the Charee ever clear this dungeon?  If so, then why wasn’t it recorded?  The only reason he could think of was that they didn’t count because they were Contenders; everything he’d learned told him that the Charee – and any other race that had been transported to Tarth – were simply caretakers until the Humans showed up. 

Shaking his head at all of these untimely thoughts, he instead focused on what was ahead of him as he took another step into the Magma Dungeon.