Dungeon’s Path

Jim was the first to react. He wasn’t on the side the Guard was attacking from, but that suited his combat style anyway. It would almost seem like an unfair match. Jim didn’t have magic.

Except he didn’t need magic, though he didn’t just depend on normal strength either. Rather, he had a secret he hadn’t meant to have. Everyone else had either woken to the power right away or at least got a defense set up.

Jim? He was sort of a late bloomer, but fighting the Udoroots had helped it along. See, Jim was a true psychic. Not like the guy with the horn or the others in Wolf’s Rest. Even without the system and magic, he would have been one of those special people you find occasionally. The type that seem to just know the weather or who always have strange events going on around them.

Not really ever enough to say they’re a weather precog or that they had the power to start fires with their mind, especially not if their world didn’t have any supernatural power like magic hanging around. And in the normal swing of things they’d just fall into their job. Sometimes though, life happens. In Jim’s case the world ended, which can be a pretty decent motivator.

So yeah, he hadn’t intended to keep this all a secret, but the key to such people is their mundanity. The sea captain that occasionally decides today isn’t the best day to fish or that over there is a better place to try. The farmer who despite not doing anything besides working hard is able to grow more than his neighbors and all their fancy fertilizers and pesticides. Those real salt of the earth types and what Jim got matched this sort of thing.

He didn’t get the ability to make his arrows fly unerringly to their target. Nor the ability to manifest arrows out of nothing. Jim’s ability was much more mundane, so much so the system didn’t even recognize it as a skill in the same way it didn’t recognize a human’s ability to walk or breathe as one.

Jim was a ranger with a capital R and his talent matched how he saw the role. Out in the wild he would recognize plants and animals, tracks would stand out, and his feet would leave no trail when needed. Not through any magic, but rather simple almost mundane things. His power tasting the plants for any poisons and twitching muscles to adjust what he saw and how he moved.

In a fight? Well, it did much the same thing. The troop guard had no psychic defenses and so being this close Jim knew where to hit. Then when firing his shot the bow was just a small bit sturdier, his arms just that bit stronger, and his eyes perfectly stable. To get even half these effects would require a mage to cast a buff spell requiring all their attention and yet to Jim it was as natural as breathing.

Then the arrow pierced through the joint area of the guard's left leg that was still on the ground. In theory this shouldn’t have done anything because it's a mushroom. Not like there are nerves or even proper muscles to disrupt. In reality, there was a minor weakness in each joint which mimicked something similar to how octopuses have nerve clusters for each leg.

As for why? Well, they’re what remain of the original lesser myconids that were used to form the lesser troop guard. Not that damaging them would do any permanent damage as they were very much redundant at this point. Except even if it wasn't required, suddenly getting a bunch of junk signals from it because of suddenly having an arrow through it could throw things into chaos for a moment or two. Not the biggest reprieve, but more than enough for the others to react.

Perfect for Bill and Tess to put their experience tanking to use. Before this neither of them had needed to stop a troop guard's stomp having always focused on evasion. After all, who would let something that comes up to your shoulders when on all five legs, stomp on you?

That wasn't an option. They needed to be able to take the full brunt of the attack head on. A daunting proposition, but they weren't going to give up without trying.

Though what they didn't try was to block with their weapons. Those things might be high quality dungeon loot, but they're still basically just wood. Maybe if they had gotten them from floor eight or later, but they were press-boss loot from all that early goat farming when people actually hunted the kobolds and such. After all, cows weren’t exactly known for dropping spears and clubs.

And how did they know they wouldn’t hold up? Simple enough really, Tess used to have a spear that she personally looted after they fought the kobold boss. “Used to” being the operative part as she ended up having it snap one of them times they were checking out the ninth floor.

It wasn't even some kind of important fight. They were rolling through the first kobold camp and one of them got a lucky shot with their pick. So yeah, trying to block the troop guard with their weapons was just a recipe for disaster.

Then the moment was over. The troop guard's left leg stopped spazzing out and it regained its footing enough to smash down on them. Bill and Tess steadied themselves and with arms in front, blocked.

Though even if they felt a little guilty, they didn't fully commit. If their arms broke, Kellinger and then would be dead. It didn't come to that though.

They strained against the weight crashing down on them and there was certainly going to be some bruises. Maybe even bone bruises, but after the initial momentum bled off, the weight wasn't all that bad. It certainly helped that it was a stomp.

Even with magic shenanigans, there is only so much you can do when pressing down on something. After a certain point it just turns into you pushing yourself up, instead of crushing something. So combined with the fact the guard was light for its size, not only had the duo stopped the guard. They even managed to slightly lift its front legs off the ground for a moment.

Only a moment though, as the troop guard quickly adjusted. Then another arrow struck true, disabling the right leg. All the while Kelly was forced to play defense.

Sure, a bit of literal firepower wouldn't be out of place. However, it wouldn't do much good if they let a sprout slip through and get to Kellinger. So defense she played, using a ring of fire to keep the chaff away.

Good thing they didn't quite need her help with the guard. With the one leg momentarily stopped, Tess brought her spear to bear on the monster. A heavy overhead sweep slices open one leg and the central region.

The cut a good handspan or two deep. Maybe her spear isn't as effective as this as a proper halberd would be, but as long as it works, that is all that matters. And work it does, each new slash forcing the guard to retreat as Tess makes full use of her weapon's reach.

At this point the fight stabilizes. The myconids who had originally begun to advance, paused when they saw the guard being pushed back and the sprouts had been catastrophically reduced in number. Sure, they might have been basically just chaff, but they had played one other important role.

The sprouts could produce a lot of spores. Without them, the air began to clear up with unnatural speed as the summoned material faded away. Then Kellinger managed to resist the poison.

Of course this wasn't how poison used to work. You didn't resist the stuff the magical become better. Even if you get an antidote, the poison will have still messed you up.

Now though, poison was about magic and intent. So all those spores? One of the most video game aspects of life now. Drown in them and you're paralyzed. Resist it though? Right as rain!

And speaking of rain, that's exactly what seemed to suddenly start up. Except instead of water it was grease. Kellinger wasn't happy about being paralyzed.

Boom!

The guard was knocked off its feet, half the myconids were killed right out, and all the remaining sprouts basically stopped existing. Because you see, paralyzed isn't the same thing as being unconscious. Kellinger was aware the entire time and as a mage, he was privileged in the matter of not really needing too much physical movement to fight.

Sure, you need some body control to actually cast the magic. That's why Kellinger hadn't started to act like a spell turret while down. However, it didn't stop you from prepping a spell, so he waited, gathering power for the chance to strike back.

As for why he used the grease spell as the base instead of something more destructive like a fire spell? Simple enough, it was his best spell and to pump that much power into the thing? You can't just use any old spell. It either needs to be one designed to take the strain like a ritual spell or you have to know it well enough to stabilize the thing. Suffice it to say, Kellinger knew the grease spell like no one else on the planet.

Now, he hadn't intended it to explode quite like that. Kellinger's original intent was to soak all the monsters, then set them on fire. Simple enough, except Kelly had her little ring of fire going to protect them from the sprouts.

Good thing they were all armored up enough that the explosion coming in from all sides didn't seriously injure anyone. Sure, they all had a nice layer of black soot, but even that began to vanish as the summoned material began to fade. Not that they could quite afford to rest yet.

The remaining myconids weren't the easiest to finish off with how things ended up. Still, in the end a few myconids versus an entire party of delvers? Without the surprise and the swarm, it wasn't really much of a challenge anymore.

Still, they certainly weren't ready to continue once the monsters were dead. Though once again they also decided not to turn back. Yes, they were banged up, but more in line with bruises over serious damage.

On top of that, four of them were already healing from even that. So instead they set up camp in the nearby mushroom village with Jim taking over most of guard duty. He wasn't too worried about being attacked, but better safe than sorry.

Jim wasn't just watching though. He was going over the last fight, moment by moment. The problem was that there hadn't really been much they could have done once the fight was started.

It wasn't quite an ambush, but they certainly didn't get to prepare for it. Next time they would need a better method of descending into these pits. Jim sighed, he could feel that the end of the floor was near. Just a bit further and not only could they leave, but they would know if there were more floors.

By this point and going by the previous growth rate, there should be. Still, it needed to be confirmed. People weren't going to be satisfied with just the cattle once they realized that the deeper the resource is from, the better it was.

Bill and Tess's weapons were good examples of that. Both of them had very nasty bruising on their arms despite the armor. If their weapons had been loot from the last floor though, it wouldn't have been a problem to use them to block. Jim shakes his head, tomorrow they would finish this floor and maybe with all the fighting there would be some good drops waiting for them.