The Pinnacle Warrior

“What was that?” Benedict demanded. “I thought your staff was for making storms, not a damn explosion.”

“At its core, mana is energy. We were in a very mana-dense location, so we had a ton of potential energy for the staff to work with. I didn’t give it any direction, so it just expanded on the densest available material. The staff enchantments,” Skandr’s voice became more guilty at this part, “are focused on only making a storm that is well suited to the location. I guess there’s such a thing as a mana storm, if it’s dense enough. So, instead of creating a typical storm, I basically made a mana tornado, but due to the nature of mana, once there was enough of it, the storm collapsed in on itself.”

“And in what way was that a storm?” Benedict repeated. “I get that mana can make just about anything, but it’s supposed to make what you commanded it to make, not just random explosions.”

“I think I could call this one user error more than anything else. Everywhere else that we’ve been, even the Boss floor of a Steel tier Dungeon branch that was undergoing a surge, had a lower concentration of ambient mana,” Skandr took the blame. “I did the same thing that I’d done there, just pushing the mana out of the staff and encouraging it to create a strom. Because I gave it no direction at all, it did exactly what it was supposed to. I think, with a little bit of experimentation, I can probably shift its intent away from just making this mana storm that culminates in an explosion to instead be literally anything else, but it’ll take some studying.”

“That’ll be something to do on your own time, maybe conduct some experiments when you’re ready,” Astrid nodded. “Also, somehow, that storm seems to have caught the creature we were looking for in the trees. A Tavari? I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of it.”

The rest of the party shook their heads, and Astrid shrugged.

“Going off of the experience gained, it was level 68, but it died pretty easily. Probably ambush predators, which we already suspected.”

“We ran away from the explosion too,” Benedict said. “Are you saying that we would die pretty easily?”

“Not at all,” Astrid shook her head. “I think we might have been injured in the blast, but barring being exceptionally unlucky or the explosion being significantly stronger than we expected, we would’ve been able to get out of that fine. The issue is that it was a massive explosion in a place we don’t understand, with enemies we’re unfamiliar with and reaching level peaks that we don’t know. If there are red shimmerbugs, and then several of them, they might be interested in figuring out why there was a big explosion in their backyard. If that was the case, we could end up getting ourselves killed”

Benedict’s eyebrows raised, and he asked, “So that’s why you got out of there so quickly.”

“Yeah, that was the big reason why I had us all exit the Dungeon, instead of just getting to a safe distance. Of course, condensed mana is also very dangerous, and it might have just had an especially dangerous but limited blast radius.”

Astrid looked at the other members of the party and saw agreement there. With nothing else to say about the Dungeon itself, at least for now, she looked around the canyon they were all standing in and said, “So where do we want to spend the night?”

***

Finding a good campground wasn’t difficult, and the party quickly found themselves a place to settle down that wasn’t too far from the entrance.

“It’s weird to be on a delve all by ourselves, with nobody else around to watch our backs,” Benedict said, “and not have to worry about the monsters coming out to get us.”

“We’ll still keep a watch out,” Astrid nodded, “but apparently monsters can’t come out of the Dungeon proper without being helped. It’s part of what makes Dungeon branches so much more well known and protected than the Dungeon proper. They have to be, or they’ll overflow and start attacking people on the surface.”

“I know that,” Benedict interrupted whatever tangent Astrid was about to get lost in, “it’s just weird. We spent plenty of time camping in the Trials or in different Dungeon branches, but now, we’re just a two-minute walk away from the entrance to the Dungeon proper, which has nobody guarding it, and we’re as safe as being in town, basically.”

“Yes, it’s weird,” Astrid nodded in agreement. “But it is what it is, and we’ll keep an eye out. So, let’s figure out food.”

As soon as she said it, Felix understood what she was getting at and blanched as he stared at her.

“You couldn’t possibly be thinking—”

“Of doing the same thing that we did in the Wandering Trials? Of course I’m thinking of it.”

“But these are bugs! Bugs!”

“Have you ever seen the inside of a bug this big?” Astrid shrugged. “It might have steaks like a more regular animal.”

“The meat of monstrous bugs is not like that,” Muti shook her head. “I have seen it.”

Felix’s face screwed up in disgust even more, and, despite herself, Astrid felt her own face screw up in distaste at the thought.

“We’ve only got so much preserved food,” Astrid said. “If we’re looking to extend our ability to be out here, we’re going to have to supplement our food with things from either the Dungeon or that we can find nearby. And I’m not willing to potentially piss off the Verdant Walkers because we were being picky with food.”

Felix stopped arguing at that, but he also started going through his spatial pouch, checking how much food was inside. He seemed to come to a conclusion after about thirty seconds and then looked at Astrid.

“I will forfeit a quarter of my pay to be able to take all of your preserved food.”

“That isn’t going to work,” Astrid shook her head. “Our funds are all communal anyways. If you, next time we leave town, want to fill up your spatial pouch with food instead of supplies, I suppose you can, but I’m not going to give up my own food because you’re being a picky baby.”

“I’m not being picky, it’s bugs! I don’t wanna eat bug bugs, and that isn’t me being a baby. I just think that’s disgusting.”

“Like a baby.”

Felix waved her off and turned to the other three members of the party. The only one who looked like she would even begin to consider it was Muti, though that didn’t seem to satisfy the Guardian. Everybody knew how much he ate, and, since they planned to scope out this entrance for at least a week, the amount of food they brought simply wouldn’t cut it for him without getting more food from somewhere

In retrospect, Astrid rebuked herself for having only prepared the bare minimum of preserved food. After all, they could have gone somewhere that there weren’t any monsters or materials around to subsist off of. If that was the case, and very well could have been given how much the Dungeon proper apparently could’ve changed in the past twenty years, then they wouldn’t have been able to delve much without returning to town.

Pushing that thought from her mind, Astrid and the party set up camp, preparing to spend the night and make themselves a meal. The stew that resulted, partially dried meat from Neverwood and partially a cut of somewhat gelatinous meat from the green shimmerbug, wasn’t bad, per se. Compared to Michel’s food? It was only barely palatable.

Then, once night had fallen, they all set up to rest. Easy conversations surrounded the small fire they attended, and Skandr threw himself into understanding what exactly happened with the mana explosion. Astrid watched him idly, his circular glyphs and notes filling a page of his notebook as he investigated exactly what had gone wrong. Nearly half an hour passed of easy conversation before he seemed to have made some headway, and Astrid sat next to him on his cot, trying to see what he’d learned. The bed creaked under her weight, but Skandr didn’t seem worried about it.

“How easy will it be for you to start adjusting your staff’s output?” Astrid asked, glancing at the sketches and understanding nothing.

“Not at all,” Skandr replied, his smile broad. “It’s made to do one thing very specifically and to do so with the greatest ease possible. As such... you don’t really care about the specifics of it. Basically, I’m trying to make a hammer a spear.”

Astrid turned and stared down at the shorter man, her eyes narrow.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does,” he chuckled. “Hammers and clubs are basically the simplest weapons to use, right? You know, swing it, make the heavy part hit the enemy. A spear is more of a precise instrument, meant to stab in specific ways. As it is right now, my staff is like a hammer or a club. I give it mana, it interacts with the environment, and makes a storm. I don’t have a whole lot of control over what kind of storm it is, and the only way that I can really effect the end result is by making  it bigger is by giving it more mana. So, instead of just giving it mana, I’m trying to figure out how to make a club, which is a better object for this analogy than a hammer, into a spear. Sure, it’s possible, but a club gets its value from its mass, not from its length or from its sharpness. So, I’m seeing what I need to add, what I need to change, and so on.”

Astrid blinked twice, understanding more or less, and she shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure I get it. I don’t know why you’re so excited about this being difficult though.”

“Because of the reason that it’s going to be difficult,” Skandr explained. “Remember, I was really excited about getting the staff because of what I’d learn from using it in various different places. It’s one of the main reasons why I was so excited about getting this piece of equipment in the first place, and now, I’m getting my first experience in using it like that. As far as I can tell, a mana storm is both the most fundamental and the most esoteric type of storm that I could create, so though what’s going to be very difficult for me is understanding exactly how this works and how to adjust it, I think that the better I understand it, the more simple it will be for me to learn other types of storms. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I’d say I get it,” Astrid said, only partially believing her words.

She leaned on his shoulder, making him grunt in surprise as his other hand had to release his book and instead steady him from being knocked over by her weight.

“Good luck,” she said. At that, Skandr smiled and nodded at her, seeming to really stare into her eyes before Astrid felt awkward and then stood up. “Well, sleep good.”

“You too,” the Wizard said. She found her way into her own bed, unsure why she was feeling so uncomfortable, but sleep came quickly enough.

Now that she was Steel tier, and especially because her Fortitude was over 700, Astrid needed precious little sleep. A solid four hours? That was enough to keep her going for at least a day and a half of hard delving. Even so, when she deliberately tried to, she could sleep for a little bit longer. Felix was in that same boat, and he and Astrid were the go-to people to take watch from day to day. Muti and Benedict only needed a bit more rest than the others, maybe six hours to be capable of a good long delve afterward, Skandr behind them. Him having Warlock’s Constitution was particularly beneficial in that case, so despite the party very deliberately taking extra time to get good rest, they went to bed well after dark and were ready to go by sunrise.

With everybody in their equipment and ready for at least a full day of delving, they made their way to the entrance once again. This time, knowing what was waiting for them, Astrid and Felix led the way with their shields held high, just in case one of the monsters had made its way into the cave. They weren’t greeted by anything other than the faint purple light from the ground, and once all five Wanderers had entered, they made their way to the exit of the cave.

Before they got all the way there, though, all five of them heard something that hadn’t existed the day before.

A clamor of cutting, feasting, and shimmerbugs seeming to crawl over each other greeted them, and as soon as they made their way out of the cave, they all paused, unsure of what to do. Yesterday, the Dungeon had been lightly populated by shimmerbugs. Maybe three to be found in every 150 to 200 square meters. Now, there were, just in their immediate sight, at least fifty shimmerbugs feasting on every one of the vines that could be found. The forest of vine-trees that had existed yesterday was largely gone, and the clumped masses of shimmerbugs were fighting over the last remnants of vine-trees.

Among them, half were violet, and another third indigo. The rest were blue, except for a single green. And, almost as one, they turned and saw the Wanderers.

There wasn’t a word to be said, as the nearest violet shimmerbugs charged towards the party. Skandr cheered for a brief moment, as he finally got an opportunity to prove himself, familiar incantation for a chain lightning spell flying from his lips as Astrid and Felix both stepped forward and started laying waste to the nearest violet shimmerbugs.

Within a few short seconds, lightning exploded from Skandr’s hand, arcing between half a dozen of the closest violet shimmerbugs. Their bodies started smoking as the lightning chained from one monster to the next, and in that single spell, nearly half of the entire array of monsters were killed.

When finally the lightning reached the blue shimmerbugs, though, their defensive Skills flashed into existence, and though they’d stood pretty well against Astrid’s hammer and Felix’s axe, they seemed to simply absorb the energy of the lightning instead of deflecting it. The shields were destroyed before too long, but with their disappearance came the finishing of the chain lightning bolts.

“That’ll be something to keep an eye on with the higher tier ones,” Skandr said from behind as Astrid and Felix hustled towards the next enemy. “It’s almost more of an anti-magic shield than anything else.”

The rest of the party agreed as they turned to fight against the blue shimmerbugs. After all, though their attention was initially on the green one, Muti disappeared in a flash of shadow before appearing below the shimmerbug with her blades slicing through its legs. With all four legs crippled, it started to fall down on top of her, but she twisted as one of her tattoos flashed, ice appearing underneath the shell and allowing her to slip out. Once safe, the Barbarian grunted and shouldered the shimmerbug onto its back.

Needless to say, the green shimmerbug didn’t have long to live after that, and the rest of the party focused on dispatching the rest of the blues.

Though their charging Skills shouldn’t be ignored, the Wanderers quickly found that the blue shimmerbugs were much easier to deal with than the nightmares’ charge. The horselike beasts, especially under the instruction of the irregulars, were able to all work together, while the shimmerbugs were all individuals, fighting against the same enemies but far from united.

Only a single minute passed before the party was finished dispatching the shimmerbugs, but Astrid couldn’t help but laugh a bit—they’d found something somewhat like a challenge in this section of the Dungeon, and it’d only taken a day. There were still plenty more types of monsters to be found around here, and they would only get stronger from here. And the 20,388 experience she’d gained? Well that was just another bonus on top of that.

“Now, should we find out why there were so many of these bugs over here now?” Astrid asked as the party gathered the green shimmerbug corpse and left the rest.