Chapter 73: Tactical Retreat

Ellie walked with Maven while Tess scouted in front of them. It was almost too easy, really; unlike when she had been training without Tess, all she had to do was watch for enemies coming up behind them and deal with any enemies Tess found.

She was of half a mind to ask Tess to let her do the scouting. Not because Tess was doing poorly or anything, but because she was afraid that she would never get proper experience in doing things herself if Tess kept up the way she was. Whether she liked it or not, she wouldn’t always have Tess to count on for this kind of thing. There would be times they would be separated, and she would do poorly if she didn’t have these skills.

Tess signaled for them to meet up at her position, and after a few more moments of walking, Ellie and Maven reached her position. “What’s up?” Ellie asked.

“The cave branches off up ahead.” Tess explained. “I can sense three big rooms, and no clear indication of which way to go. Do either of you have a preference between left, right, and center?”

“Let’s go left.” Maven said. “We can always pick left on our first time through a place, and then work our way to the right, just as a way to keep track of things.”

“Sounds good to me.” Ellie said. “We should leave markings, too, or…actually, would that ruin things for future people who are discovering this place? Um, give me a second to ask the gods.”

Fortune: It’s all good. Normally the answer would be yes, markings will persist between attempts, as long as they would last outside of a dungeon, but we’re going to be refreshing the interiors of all the savage dungeons just before they’re about to be found, so knock yourselves out.

“The answer is yes, it would normally ruin things, but the gods are gonna wipe all that sort of stuff before people find the dungeon.” Tess said. “So, we’re fine to do whatever. I’ll mark everything with chalk as we go, but don’t forget that we can’t just rush through this place once we figure out the correct path, we have to try everything and make sure nothing is too unfair.”

“Yeah, but we’ll worry about that later. Right now, let’s just work on finishing the dungeon.”

“I know, I just wanted to remind you.” Tess said.

“It’s all good.” Ellie said. “Anything else to report?”

“No, that’s it. I’ll get back to scouting now.” Tess replied, heading back down the tunnels. Ellie and Maven followed her at a distance, and they soon reached the three-way split that Tess had reported earlier. The path to the left had already been marked with chalk, so they took a turn, and began walking down the sloping path.

After just a short walk, the path opened up into a wide room, full of narrow pathways over a giant lake. Small crystals shining with light seemed to be embedded into the walls and ceiling, granting the whole place an ethereal glow that allowed for navigation without a light.

It also allowed them to see the monsters that were wandering about the cavern. There were a large number of bats flitting around, lizards were crawling up and down the walls, and Ellie was able to make out flashes of motion in the water below.

Tess was waiting for them at the entrance to the room. “I think there are some traps up ahead. I’m going to try and disarm them, so…just chill here for a bit, I guess. I have no clue how aggressive these bats are, but I’ll try and rush back if they start attacking you guys.”

“Can you make out what’s in the water?” Maven asked.

“Fish, I think? The water is at the edge of my tremorsense, and it doesn’t go very far through water anyway, but the shapes are…vaguely fishlike. They’re big, though, so…uh, try not to fall, I guess?”

“No need to tell us twice.” Ellie said. “I’d rather not find out what’s down there that way. We’ll just camp out here until you’re done.”

But, as it turned out, it wouldn’t be as simple as just sitting there and waiting while Tess worked on the traps. Ellie and Maven were spotted by the bats after only a minute or two, and were thrown into battle. Individually, the bats weren’t any issue, and took no more than one or two hits to kill, the problem was that they came in groups.

Even with all four of the Swords of Death attacking bats, and Maven casting area of effect spells as fast as she could, Tess still had plenty of time to notice the fight was happening, get to a stable point in her trap disarming, run over, and join the fight before they had even killed half of the bats that had swarmed them.

And, as the combat dragged on, more and more monsters began to notice their presence and move towards them. Even with Silky and Isabella’s help, the three girls found themselves slowly but surely being pushed back towards the entrance of the room they were in.

For the first time in quite a while, Maven was starting to take hits. Tess was still fine, mostly due to the fact that nothing targeted her until she targeted them, and she tended to instantly kill anything she targeted, but that really only served to increase the number of things that were targeting Ellie or Maven.

Fortunately, the damage was more psychological than physical. The monsters were five or six levels below Maven, and Ellie’s Aegis halved what damage was done, but it was still a little disheartening.

So it was that, after around five or ten minutes of fighting, Ellie called the retreat. “We need to get back into the tunnel, you two!” She shouted. “This isn’t going to work!”

“You sure?!” Tess yelled back. “I think they’re starting to thin out!”

“Yeah, Maven’s getting hit too much, this isn’t sustainable! We need to re-evaluate our strategy!”

“I’m almost out of Mana, too!” Maven shouted. “A break would be much appreciated!”

“Got it!” Tess replied. “You two start retreating, I’ll cover you!”

Ellie and Maven began focusing on moving more than fighting, and progress towards the mouth of the cave sped up. Within a minute or two, they had made it, and the intensity of the assault began to fade. Using the mouth of the cave as a chokepoint, Ellie was able to keep most of the monster’s attention off of Maven, and Tess dealt with any stragglers that looked like they might get through.

Once Tess crossed the threshold, Ellie began to head backwards into the tunnels, and the monsters soon lost interest. “So, that’s not gonna work.” She said. “I don’t think we’re capable of handling that many monsters with just the three of us. There’s no telling if or when they’re gonna respawn, so I’d rather not try and clear it out in bits and pieces unless we have no other options.”

“I could go through and disable all the traps beforehand, then come back and the three of us could try and run through it as fast as possible.” Tess offered.

“But what if we find out partway through our run that we won’t make it?” Maven asked. “Then we’d be out in the middle of everything with nowhere to run to.”

Tess frowned. “I suppose you’re right.” She admitted. “But we have to fight them eventually, right? I can sneak through them, but I don’t know about you two.”

“Don’t you have access to literally every spell?” Ellie asked. “Surely there’s something that can be of use.”

“Probably, but the issue is the Mana cost. I have to land some pretty meaty bleeds to even cast most higher tier spells, and there’s no way I can get one that strong without instantly killing one of those monsters. And then, even if I can cast the spell, the upkeep will probably suck me dry in half a minute. Though, at that point, I could probably just use smaller bleeds to handle the upkeep, so…it might work, I just need to get that big bleed off.”

“I could –” Ellie began, but Tess cut her off.

“I’m not hitting you.” She said. “Not unless there is literally no other option.”

Ellie sighed. “I was just offering, just wanted to let you know it was on the table, you know?”

“And I took it off.” Tess said matter-of-factly. “Not only would it leave a really bad taste in my mouth, but it would also hurt, and you’d be left injured or low on Mana from healing the injury.”

“Back on topic,” Maven said, “what about the water? Water breathing spells are pretty cheap, all we’d really have to worry about is the fish and whether or not there’s any traps or anything in the water.”

“I can go check, if you want to give me like five minutes.” Tess volunteered. “It should give Maven some time to regenerate Mana, too.”

“I already drank a Mana potion, I’ll be full in about a minute.” Maven said. “So that’s not an issue for the time being.”

“Eh, we can discuss more while she’s out.” Ellie said. “More information can’t hurt.”

“Very well.” Maven said. “Would you please go check the water for us, Tess?”

“On it.” Tess replied, scampering back down the tunnel and out of sight.

There was silence for a moment, then Maven spoke up. “Were you serious about letting her create a bleed on you?”

Ellie paused, then nodded. “Yeah. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to, but if it came down to it, I would be willing.”

“I…do not believe I would be able to do the same.” Maven admitted. “I really don’t want to be on the receiving end of those claws, ever. They almost look nastier than your swords…almost.”

“They might well be. I’d probably do more damage than her in the short term, it’s all the other stuff that’ll get you. Though…I guess with my swords it’s kinda the same way? Anyway, you have any other ideas for getting through that room?”

Maven shrugged. “Try a different room and come back once we’ve got the reward from this dungeon?” She ventured. “This dungeon does seem like a bit…much for us, so there’s no harm in making a tactical retreat, right?”

“I suppose so, I just…it feels wrong, leaving it untouched. Like…I should be able to do something about it, you know?”

“There are a lot of things that we can’t do anything about.” Maven said. “It’s not a reflection on your character, it’s just the way the world works. Though…I suppose that goes less so for you, since you’re an Appointed, but my point stands.”

“I know, I know…I just feel like I’ll have failed if I do that, and it’s…embarrassing, I guess.”

“Then we’ll all have failed together.” Maven replied. “Responsibility for this adventure falls equally on the three of us. We’re a team, and that means sharing both the successes and the failures.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Ellie sighed. “My head knows that, but…controlling my emotions is hard.”

“It is, but having correct self-talk is the first step. Force yourself not to think of it as a failure, but as having made the right choice. No one would call it a failure to run from an enemy that is far stronger than you, especially if you’re planning on coming back when you’re a little stronger.”

“Alright, you two!” Tess called out from down the tunnel. “I went in the water for a bit, and I’ve got a report!”

“We’ll talk more about this later.” Maven said, turning to face the tunnel. “What’s the news?” She yelled.

A few moments later, Tess jogged up next to them. “So, good news and bad news.” She said. “The bad news is that I’m pretty sure the fish are bigger than they were when we first entered the room. They’re nasty-looking things, too; they’re like…all pulsing with this red fleshy stuff. I even killed one and absorbed the core, and it seems like they get stronger when things die near them.

“On the bright side, there aren’t that many of them, and there are a lot of little islands in the water. So…I guess we might be able to navigate through the water, but it seems a risky proposition. The fish are, individually, stronger than the other monsters we’ve fought in here, and we’ll be at a disadvantage fighting in the water.”

“Did you get a good view of the end of the room?” Maven asked. “Is there a good path up to the exit?”

“There’s a decent enough path, but it’ll require some climbing. Nothing as bad as we had to deal with in the cliffs, though, it should be a piece of cake in comparison.”

“How’d the fish react when you attacked it?” Ellie asked. “And how hard was it to kill?”

“It took me a few hits, and it got really big and aggressive when I hit it. I just surfaced and activated my wings, then hovered a bit out of reach until it died, so I can’t really say how hard it would be if you were actively fighting it in the water, but…now that I’m thinking about it, the other fish got really aggressive when there was blood in the water.

“There was a lot of splashing from other parts of the lake, but it all went away as soon as the fish died and all of its blood vanished. So…I guess they’re kinda like piranhas? They’ll just swarm to the blood, so…maybe the lake isn’t our best option.”

Maven bit her lip thoughtfully. “Let’s check out the other rooms.” She said. “Just to make sure there isn’t something that’s more our speed there. We can come back here later, when we’re stronger.”

“I’m fine with that if you two are.” Tess said. “Ellie?”

Ellie sighed. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

The three girls hiked back up to where the path had split, and Tess erased the chalk marking before marking the middle path. They descended down the tunnel, only to come running back a few minutes later as the room presented them with a similar problem as the previous room. There wasn’t treacherous footing or anything, just a lot of random monsters.

They were weaker than the monsters in the last room, but their individual strength had never been the problem. There were just too many of them for the three girls to comfortably handle. So, they erased the mark to that room as well, and headed to their last available option.

When Ellie caught sight of the contents, she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” She said, looking down at the solitary monster that was roaming the cavern. “We can take it.”

“Can we?” Tess said dubiously. “That’s at least a miniboss, and we know absolutely nothing about it.”

“Yeah, but we’re tearing through the other monsters like they’re made of tissues, there are just too many of them.” Ellie said confidently. “I can hold this one’s attention, though, and you two can hit it to your heart’s content. We’ve got plenty of single-target nova damage, and if we can’t take this thing out, there’s no way we’re taking the boss out.”

“She has a point there.” Maven said. “I think it’s our best option.”

“Alright, I guess.” Tess said. “How are we doing this?”

Ellie gave the monster a closer look. It seemed to be some sort of giant slug, and its movements were, well, sluggish. “Just get some big hits on it, stack those ailments, and I’ll kite it around the room. We’re way faster than it is, so I’ll just keep its aggro and stay out of range, easy peasy.”

Tess shrugged. “Alright. I’ll go get myself into position, and I’ll hit it once it looks like you’re ready.” She said, trotting into the chamber.

As usual, the slug ignored Tess as she walked behind it and readied herself to strike. So, shield raised high, Ellie cast a haste spell on herself, let out a war cry and charged into the room, Swords of Death already flying towards the thing.

Tess pounced, slicing her claws into the creature’s slimy flesh before blinking away. A few moments later there was a spray of gore and the slug stopped its slow movement towards Ellie, beginning to turn towards Tess instead.

Then the Swords of Death hit it, and it turned right back to Ellie. It swelled alarmingly, and then spat out a ball of mucus from its mouth. Fortunately, with her haste, Ellie had plenty of time to jump out of the way, and the ball impacted the ground with a sizzling sound.

Maven cast a barrage of fireballs and took to the air, but that proved to be pointless; about halfway through the fireballs, the slug collapsed before dissipating into that rainbow mist that accompanied the death of a monster.

“See?” Ellie said. “Easy.”

“You were right.” Tess said. “That was…a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s partially because of my other Blessing?” Maven said. “I really underestimated how much it would help against things that didn’t just die in one hit, I was dealing a lot more damage than I normally do against strong monsters.”

“Yeah, that’d do it.” Ellie said. “So…shall we keep going?”

“Give me a few minutes to shuffle around some of my Attributes.” Tess said. “That slug had some nice stuff on it. Like…adding acid to my natural weapons.”

Ellie nodded and sat down. “Fine with me.”

“I wouldn’t mind another break.” Maven said, landing and sitting down next to Ellie. “Just let us know when you’re ready to go.”

Fighterman481

That being said, I don't have anything to say that wasn't discussed in the chapter itself, so...next time we're gonna actually finish this dungeon, so...look forward to it, I guess?

And, as always, thanks for reading!