“So, what do you think we will get this time?” Luna asks quietly. She is climbing over the rocks and making her way down to the chest. It rests on ledge midway between the ground and the den.
Alli rushes to the box like last time. But unlike last time she opens the box right away. Out of the box she pulls a scarf woven from a lion mane. It is golden and extremely soft. Slightly gleaming in the false sun the scarf looks incredibly fashionable.
Scarf of Persistent Defense.
Tier 1
A scarf made from the mane of powerful lion
- Increase the strength of all defensive skills.
- +5 to end.
As everyone looks at the scare Gabi speaks up. “Well sense I got the last item ill bow out of this one. But it would be great for my ‘Bronze Skin’ skill.”
As they all discuss who the skill should go to everyone thinks that the obvious answer is Kenneth. That is until Helo remembers what happened with the spider. Not wanting to make Kenneth any stronger Helo speaks up. “We should try giving it to Aiko.”
Everyone looks at him with some surprise, Kenneth starts getting angry but before he can speak Aiko stutters out. “Wah… What… Why!?”
“Because the person who keeps us alive the most is Aiko.” Helo says to the group. “Not only her ‘Heal’, but also her ‘Protect’. This item says it will strengthen all defensive skills. I’d like to see how her ‘Protect’ gets enhanced. That lion was already able to break the skill with a single strike.” He says all that then shrugs. Helo did his part and doesn’t want to antagonize Kenneth anymore.
The arguing continues with Kenneth being the loudest. Eventually everyone else is swayed by what Helo said. Giving the scarf to Aiko they all test out her ‘Protect’ skill. The skill is larger and can take more damage. She also has a nifty new ability to move the barrier after it is conjured. This means that her skill might be able to defend someone from more than a single attack.
As the group is resting Alli checks the time. “We have about three hours until midnight. Either we continue forward or we stop here. I don’t know about any of you but the constant barrages from the prairie dogs and this massive fight with a lion pride has me tired.”
Looking around the entire group seems tired so speaking up Hinata makes a decision. “We will stop here. We can start again on Wednesday. We can all step onto the 19th floor. Then we will come back onto the 18th floors exit to leave the dungeon.”
Moving to the exit they all look into the 19th floor and see another vast cavern. This one has far more trees in it and has the usual noise of a forest. “Helo. Can you go scout a bit. We will rest here and go through our gains for about two hours.” Hinata says this while looking into space. She is checking her level.
With a nod Helo takes off into the trees and starts scouting the area. Back at the entrance to the 19th floor everyone is gathered together and going over their statuses. Kenneth, Gabi and Alli are close to a new level. At the same time Hinata, Luna, Cody and Aiko all gained a new level.
Happy with reaching their new level they all celebrate. Hinata is at level 23 and rubbing it into her friend’s face. Cody is at 19. Luna and Aiko are at 20. With leveling up to 20 Aiko gained a new skill. Looking over her choices she decides to acquire the skill ‘Cure’ it is another basic skill like ‘Heal’ with a ton of growth potential. Cure can affect all kinds of status debuffs. It can even help relieve the strain from mana overuse. But it starts out simply by lowering the effect of things like poison. Luna on the other hand choose the skill ‘Strengthening Voice’ this skill is similar to ‘Haste’. It allows her to increase her party’s strength stat for a time.
Both Kenneth and Gabi are on the cusp of leveling up to 21 and Alli is close to 23.
Back in the forest Helo is enjoying running through the forest with Lelai. They both are on the forest floor exploring around them. As he is running Helo checks his experience. He expected to see a pretty decent jump; the lion was an alpha that means his total will give him four times the amount.
Class: Shaded Predator Level: 11 (62,475/1,025,000)
That is good jump for Helo. With the stag, prairie dogs, and lions Helo made some decent progress.
Running around Helo follows whatever tracks he can find. Down one he finds a large boar that is rooting around the base of trees. In another location there is a large snake sliding down a tree truck. But what Helo thinks are the main enemies on the floor are the goblins. Throughout the woods Helo can find groups of goblins hunting and gathering.
Following a goblin hunting party Helo can see a large goblin village that is in the center of the forest. Looking around and studying the goblins Helo believes there to be anywhere from 100 to 150 goblins on the floor. The hunting parties are in groups of six through ten and keep moving to and from the village. Within the village Helo sneaks into one of their huts and aside from the horrible smell he can see sleeping arrangements for seven.
So, with this information and the size of the village he makes his guess on their numbers. Having studied the floor Helo makes his way back to the group. Before he even arrives, Helo can hear the yelling from Alli and Hinata.
“Ha! I told you I would catch up to you in no time!” Alli yells. At her feet are the corpses of some of the different forest animals he saw. “See. So, you can stop your pestering!”
Walking up to Luna, Helo raises an eyebrow. Luna tells Helo what happened. “Hinata was subtly rubbing in her new level and Alli started yelling. Because of her yelling she attracted some beasts. While fighting them off she ended up gaining a level and is now rubbing it back in Hinata’s face.”
“Ah. Makes sense.” Helo says, with a shrug he goes to sit down. It takes another five minutes before the arguing pair realize Helo returned.
Straightening her clothes an acting mature, Hinata says “Helo, you have returned. So, what did you find?”
“Well.” Helo says pointing at the mix of carcasses at their feet. They have a mix of forest animals like snakes and horned rabbits. “I saw much of what your own methods turned up. Good job by the way.” Helo says this sarcastically.
Alli while puffing up her chest says back. “Thank you. It was all part of my plan. Hinata had no idea what I was thinking and acted irresponsibly.” They all look at her and shake their heads. They are all thinking Shameless.
Coughing into his hand Helo covers up his face. “Ahem. Anyway, there are also larger variants like snakes and boars that have their own territories. In the center is a large goblin village. With anywhere from one to two hundred individuals spread throughout the entire forest at a time.”
“Mhm. Spread out you said. This is good, we can work our way through their numbers and once they have lessened, hit the camp.” Hinata says to the group while getting up. “In two days of course. Let’s go eat.” She then leads the group back to the 18th floor the out of the dungeon.
Exciting the dungeon the party enters the cavern and starts walking out into the valley. At the exit of the cavern there is a man dressed in styled brown combat pants, a button down dark tan shirt and dark green coat. “Ms. BrightMoon. I was sent here to instruct Mr. Helo that Elder Shelby has awakened.”
“Gabe! Thanks. How are the towers doing. Oh. Everyone this is Gabe. He is a new recruit from the town down the mountain. Gabe, this is my party. He is being trained as a guard.”
“The elder is awake! Gabe, are they still awake?” Helo asks the guard.
“I was told to inform you that she wants to see you at the scheduled time tomorrow.” Gabe says, he salutes and turns to leave.
“What happened to Elder Shelby? She is my favorite Elder.” Gabi asks the group as they are making their way toward their house.
“She was looking at some runes that were found in the library.” Alli says to the group. The only people who know about Helo’s uniqueness are Alli and Hinata. Both Luna and Aiko know that he is special but not how much. “The rune knocked her out cold. She finally woke up.”
The group rides their cars back to the house and everyone goes to their rooms to get clean. Sighing in relaxation Helo sits back into his bathtub. Helo made a rock filled metal stool that sits into the bathtub for Lelai. Relaxing back into the water that would burn a normal human Helo leans back with Lelai on her seat.
The seat sits about six inches below the water level. Washing them both thoroughly Helo gets ready and goes to bed.
Waking up the next morning Helo is up before most of the group. Sitting on the chairs in the third floor sitting room, Helo assumes that Aiko is already up preparing for breakfast.
Sitting on his tablet Helo starts going through the skills for tanks. Looking through the clan’s archives Helo watches videos on the different types of tanks like dodge, control, shield, barrier, or even regeneration. The description states that these are also the types of skills that tanks can have as well as titles.
Searching through the skills Helo finds the taunt skill. The skill comes with multiple paths for upgrading. The archives have multiple videos showing the skills in use. Looking through all of the videos Helo watches the physical manifestations that the skill shows.
He remembers the weird flicker in Kenneth’s skill. The red glow that was reaching out for Luna. The taunt also broke while the red glow was flickering. As he is watching the video Helo fells a pair of hands on his shoulders. He heard Hinata’s door open and her footsteps come up behind him.
“What are you looking out?” She says while looking over his shoulder. “Mhm.” She hums in his ear. “Looking at tank skill.” She says while looking up to think. “Is this about what happened yesterday. It is good that you are looking up the skill and learning how it works.”
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“Thanks, but… Honestly Hinata.” Helo says while feeling her hair softly trace his head. “Something weird happened while we fought that spider. His taunt skill has visual tells. The issue is that the tells were off.” Helo says while looking at the videos. Swiping again Helo stops and points at the screen “This right here.”
The screen shows a man taunting a single large monster and the red glow of taunt’s activation flickers then it shifts into a stream. The stream of red light heads toward a second person in the video. As the stream of red solidifies around the second person, the monster shifts toward the second person and starts attacking it. The bottom of the tablet says ‘Control Grudge’.
“What is this skill? It looks pretty useful. Shifting a taunt to a faster target could make a lot of openings.” Hinata says.
“Well. This is what I think that Kenneth uses. It says that the skill can weakly taunt multiple enemies. But it is capable of taunting a singular enemy and transferring the taunt to another.” Helo says back pointing at the line that says ‘Breaks Taunt’. “I saw a red flicker, then the spider attacked me. I’m pretty sure that this is the reason why. He was blaming me to cover for his skill; it isn’t what he told us.”
“I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. But if he has this skill, it means that he was sending the spider to attack someone else.” Hinata stands up at this and looks at Helo seriously. “This is serious, if that spider focused on anyone else, they could have died. Why does he know that skill? Why did he use it?”
“I don’t know. But he is obviously proud and antagonistic toward me. But the skill was being used on Luna. He doesn’t like her. He complains often about her not allowing him to use more of the money.” Helo replies to Hinata.
“So, what… He was scared of the spider and tried to kill Luna off.” She says while thinking.
“Like I said. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I am right. I’m just feeling wary. We both know that Calain is training him and he isn’t a nice guy.” Helo replies to her. “I have barely met him but I don’t like him.”
“Well now that you know the skill. I’ll talk to Alli about it. There are rules about looking at people’s full statuses. We can ask but if we do, he will be suspicious.” Hinata says to Helo.
“Well, I was just looking things up to keep it in mind. It seems like they are plotting something.” Helo says. After they talk about Helo’s suspicion the two of them continue talking until it is time to eat breakfast. The rest of the day is normal, training with the group went well and eventually Helo is on his way to learn enchanting from Elder Shelby.
Getting to the elder’s house Helo makes his way inside and checks the library first. Inside he finds Elder Dean and Brianna. Both of whom don’t care for Helo for some reason. “What are you doing. You can’t enter this home without permission.” Elder Dean says with an annoyed tone.
“Yes Elder. I am here to meet with Elder Shelby.” Helo says taking a look around. “Do you know if she is in her office.”
Elder Brianna cuts off Elder Dean and speaks first. “She is in her office. Go there.”
With a quick nod Helo goes to Elder Shelbys office. Knocking on the door he hears a “Come in!”
Entering the door Helo sees Elder Shelby laying on her office couch. “Get in here. Show me your plates. My husband told me that when you left, he gave you practice materials. Also! Can you believe that they restricted me to learning one new rune a month!”
“Yes, yes I can.” Helo says while pulling his plates from his necklace. Showing all his practice to Elder Shelby, she instructs him to start again with her watching. Practicing on all the soft crafting materials Helo shows off all the work he has put into learning enchanting. After an hour and a half Elder Shelby gives Helo the next few plates up and tells him to come back with a design to enchant one of the plates to glow with light.
Heading back home after a busy day Helo has dinner with the group. While everyone is heading out for their plans, Helo is preparing to head back into the dungeon around eight o’clock.
“Have fun and be safe!” Alli says while pouting. “I wish I could go with you.”
Hinata is standing behind Alli and they watch Helo leave out the door. After a minute she turns to Alli and asks her. “So why didn’t you just go?” Alli looks at her in shock and runs out the door, by then Helo is already gone.
Getting to the cavern Helo heads into the dungeon. Stepping through the swirling portal Hele enters the 20th floor. Crouching on the ground Helo looks around and sees that it looks similar to the last time that he was here.
The floor looks like a large plain with a goblin village in the center. It is filled with swaying golden grass that comes up to Helo’s hips and he can see goblins wandering around. Some are in groups and patrolling, others are alone.
Taking in a deep breath through his nose Helo can smell the mixture of a fresh breeze and the stench of the goblins. Stepping further onto the floor Helo hears a “Bing”
Dungeon Quest!
Goblin Village.
Floor 20 completion quest.
Slay the Goblin Warlord (0/1)
Surprised by the quest Helo starts thinking that the floor is compensating for the deaths of all the previous leaders.
Reading the quest Helo doesn’t think it would be too difficult for him. But he is here to gain experience and killing a large quantity of goblins, sounds like a great way to do that. So, crouching down and concealing himself with a mixture of his bloodline and aura, Helo heads further into the floor.
He is unable to see much due to the tall golden grass. Thanks to the breeze that is flowing through the cavern Helo can smell the goblins around him. So, traversing the tall grass using his other senses Helo finds his first goblin.
Slowly crawling behind the creature Helo stands up with a blade in his hand. Driving the blade into the back of the creature’s head making it choke and let out a cry. Helo grabs it and slowly lowers it to the ground. Looking around Helo can see multiple goblins around him; some are waking up from the noise others turn to face him.
Diving forward Helo tackles, the goblin in front of him. Sliding his blade between the creatures’ ribs as they fall, Helo kills the second goblin. Getting up Helo ducks his head and rolls to the side. He dodges in time to avoid the wild swing from the goblin.
While dodging the blow Helo realizes that killing a single commander while sneaking around is a lot different from fighting a group of the creatures. They might be weak, slow and unintelligent compared to him. But they are still level 20 sentient monsters.
Jumping back Helo avoids an arrow that comes sailing by his head. In his moment of concentration Helo can feel in his aura that the arrow is filled with mana. Woah, they are even using skills. I really underestimated them.
Dropping to the ground Helo rolls under and lunging strike and steps up while slamming his blade into the goblin’s chest. Dropping back, he looks around to see that he still has an archer and another knife wielder to deal with.
“Well, let’s get this done.” Helo says while throwing his knife toward the archer. Running toward the knife wielder Helo uses ‘Double Step’ to close the distance. While moving forward Helo hears a “Ding”. Grabbing his skill’s second step in a loop of energy Helo slows it down and looks to the side.
In the air he can see as his knife disappears, but before vanishing it was rebounding through the air off an arrow. Both Helo and the archer look surprised. “Cool” Helo says before reactivating his skill’s final step. Speeding up Helo quickly approaches the goblin.
Tilting his head Helo dodges a wild cut and spins to slash open the creature’s abdomen. Finishing his spin Helo is now facing the archer. He turns just in time to take an arrow to his right shoulder. Feeling the pain from the arrow Helo growls under his breath and grabs the protruding shaft.
Feeling the wound Helo can tell that his right arm is slowly going numb. “Poison.” Damnit. This hurts. Deciding that he needs to get the arrow out of his body quickly due to the poison Helo grabs the shaft harder and bites on a piece of leather he pulls out of his necklace.
Biting down on the leather Helo rips out the arrow and takes out a chunk of his flesh with it. Looking up Helo snarls at the archer. As they make eye contact the goblin releases his next arrow. Rolling forward and to the left Helo dodges the arrow and approaches the archer. The archer seeing Helo charging him starts back peddling. Helo watches as the goblin starts backing away, it then trips over something on the ground. As the goblin falls Helo dives toward it and lands on top of the fallen foe.
With his nails elongated and fang out Helo digs his nails into the goblins shoulder and head. Pulling the two apart he bites the goblins neck and drains its blood.
Groaning in pleasure Helo can feel as his shoulder starts to knit itself back together. It feels like an itch that is getting scratched by a professional masseuse, who also happens to be a goddess of pleasure and perfect manicures.
Focusing on his body Helo can also feel the poison that he was laced with. It is trying to affect his body’s ability to move. As the extra vitality flows into his body, Helo can feel as it pushes back the poisons affect.
It hasn’t completely destroyed it but it is pushing the poison back so that it can barely affect him. The once he can move freely the extra vitality vanishes and takes the poison with it.
“That is weird. Right? The absorbed vitality worked in stages. Healing my wound. Pushing back the poisons affects. Then burning itself to take the poison with it.” Shrugging his shoulders Helo can feel the wound is good and his mobility is back.
Getting up and looking around Helo sees that his fight drew attention from all the goblins in the area. Ducking low Helo conceals his presence and moves away from the scene. The area is slowly getting over run by goblin searching for him. They can’t sense his presence so more and more keep flooding the plain and looking for him.
Crouch walking Helo moves slowly through the area avoiding being seen by maneuvering through the grass and concealing himself. Eventually Helo is in a position that he can’t sneak away from. He is surrounded on all sides. So, taking a look around Helo finds a goblin who is alone and makes his way closer.
Waiting for the goblin to turn around Helo prepares his left knife. As the goblin turns, he moves forward, placing a hand over the goblins mouth Helo focuses a portion of his attention on his hand. He hopes to capture and silence any noise that the goblin might make. With his other hand Helo drives a knife into the creatures back.
To his surprise the creature’s final cries are silenced by his hand. With a smirk of victory Helo slowly lowers the goblin to the ground and moves out of the area. The next hour is a mixture of accomplishment and annoyance for Helo.
He is making good time in gaining experience, but he is having trouble figuring out a fighting style. Helo thought that he was making good time in creating a style. But similar to the alpha lion, Helo has an issue fighting groups. Fighting groups of rats and spiders made Helo think that he had a good plan.
He would lead them around while bleeding them. Using his speed and ability to quickly conceal himself, he would make advantageous circumstances. It worked well against the creatures in the lower floors.
But, right now Helo gritting his teeth from the arrow that is lodged in his lower back. Fighting sentient creatures, even dumb ones is completely different. The same logic applies; Helo wants to fight the same way. But he has to fight his instincts and think through his actions.
The skills of others require Helo to think through his actions more. Grabbing the goblin in front of him Helo bites out it’s throat while turning and using its body to take the next arrow. Looking up the goblin that struck him is 15 meters away.
Reaching back and grabbing the arrow Helo pulls it out and tosses it to the ground. “Fuck, owe. I need to start thinking things through better. My instincts are bestial. When it comes to skills and fighting sentients it will only get me so far.” Tossing the goblin to the ground Helo disappears into the grass and makes his way around avoiding the enemies.
Getting behind the archer Helo kills it and drains its blood. Dropping the creature Helo kicks it and moves on. Continuing his actions Helo goes for another thirty minutes. By this time, he has killed about 160 goblins. This is almost two a minute, with a mixture of concealment and moving quickly Helo is making the most of the tall grass. He has gotten better and positioning and planning for skill use. His aura’s ability to sense magic and enchantments is powerful when used well.
His other ability to affect external mana and break it down is also helpful but not as much. Standing over the corpse of another goblin Helo looks up in surprise. Sniffing the air he looks around. “Is that… smoke?” As he thinks that Helo can feel a presence announce itself from the village in the center of the plain.
Crouching lower and making sure his concealments are working well Helo moves around the plain until he can see the entrance of the village. At the entrance he can see a large goblin decked out in red armor with an intricate headband. The goblin’s muscles are more defined than its brethren and it has a visage of cruelty on its face. It stands taller than Helo and looks powerful.
The goblin pulls out what looks like a seed or a rock and with a surge of mana ignites it. Tossing the seed the goblin warlord smiles as a blast of fire ignites from where the seed landed.
Looking into the distance Helo can see that the plain was ignited and is now burning. That must be the smoke that I smelled earlier. The fire was starting out. Looking at the fire with annoyance and exasperation Helo just shrugs and decides that it is about time to leave the floor. To his surprise Helo can hear a scream from inside the fire. Looking closer Helo can see that the Goblin Warlord is even burning his own goblins alive to burn Helo out.
Turing back to fight the Goblin Warlord Helo stops as he faces the village. All of the goblins are being drawn back to the area of the village, they are all looking for him. The warlord is the lone strongest Goblin; unlike the last time Helo was on this floor. But in return the warlord is far more powerful.