19 Daggers
The duo decided to take on a larger obelisk now that Jay was level 6. Jay readied a charge crystal for support, while keeping his necrotic ring in the floating form for the extra 5% defence bonus.
“Only Muffin is still level 1. It won’t be long before they’re all level 2 with dual-wielding bone daggers.”
Jay smirked as he imagined the unfortunate person who would earn his ire – as the three unfeeling, uncaring shoulder-high creature-skeletons came charging at them with their green-eyed rat skulls and horns, six daggers stabbing them relentlessly from every side. And this is not including Jay who may also choose to fight. There was no hope for a human of the same level as him.
Eventually, they came to a larger obelisk. As the three feeble creatures drew closer, it ejected two level 4 bayrings. Jay still decided he would fight passively, protecting Anya while he had the three skeletons attack one bayring before it could charge up.
Each feeble creature had 2 bone daggers each, except for Muffin who had 1. Together they output 23 damage if they were to all stab at the same time – while hitting the crystal made it a critical strike, increasing their maximum potential damage to a staggering 46.
Jay analysed the bayring to calculate how long it would take to kill.
<[Bayring – Level 4]>
Type: Phenomenon – Normal
HP: 104/150
<[Skills]>
[Coil] (Passive) – The bayring’s outer body naturally spins at high speeds, giving extra damage to it’s melee attack and charging it’s crystal.
[Discharge] – 5 electrical damage – 5% chance to stun for 2 seconds. After charging its crystal, the bayring unleashes a devastating attack. 20 second charge time.
[Graze] – 5 Friction damage/second – Slows down the Bayring’s coil, resulting in a lower charge rate. If the target is in contact for longer than five seconds, they become burnt and take [50%] extra damage, though the Bayring is safely discharged.
[Sacrifice] – The bayring stabs an unsuspecting enemy with it’s crystal core, losing 5 health but dealing 20 damage. Double damage if the crystal is charged.
<[Description]>
No one is sure what these things are – do they grow from the obelisk, is that their home? Are the Bayring’s just a defence mechanism of some long-dead ancient civilisation? We don’t know, perhaps we never will.
“About 4 seconds if they all hit the crystal, otherwise at minimum about 7 seconds. That should be enough time before both can charge their crystals… oh, it seems like it’s charge time was dropped to 20 seconds.” Jay chuckled “must be hard.. for others.”
Suddenly, the bayring’s did something unexpected. They began floating higher – just out of reach of the shoulder-high skeletons.
“Shit… this makes things complicated.”
Immediately, Jay made Muffin retreat and stand in front of him, while he made a level 2 skeleton stand in front of Anya – these would be their shields in case one of the bayring’s could charge up.
Jay dashed forward with his skeleton in front as he called to Anya
“Shoot down one so we can take it out!”
Without looking back, a bolt had already struck the crystal core of the level 4 bayring. “Man, she’s a great shot, hasn’t missed at all. I wonder if it’s her class or just her pure skill…” Jay wondered as the bayring fell down towards him.
4 bone daggers awaited the falling bayring, each chipping at it’s crystal core.
“Eat shit” Jay said as he had the final stab.
Just as he killed one, the other bayring was beginning to glow, running under it, Jay warned anya “It’s about to fire!”
Suddenly, the voice of an unknown and forgotten God-king shook the dungeon.
“PROSTRATE” a ring of wind blew from around her feet as the air was filled with tension.
Anya had used her [Ashwind’s Accuser] unique class ability.
“Nice.” The voice didn’t startle Jay this time but instead it invigorated him, he was smiling as the bayring seemed to come under the gravity of a black hole. It smashed into the ground, it’s ring unable to even spin. It seemed like it was almost being compressed.
“Seems like this is what happens if something can’t physically bow to the king” Thought Jay. He didn’t even bother to walk over to attack it, having his minions finish it off.
“That was a little easier than expected, but I don’t know what I would’ve done if I couldn’t have reached them” Jay said, considering the fight.
“Yeah. Good thing my bolts can stun them.”
“How long does your ability take to cool down by the way?”
Anya didn’t really want to divulge such a secret, but she knew they were kind of in this together since both their classes were secrets; Jay’s being the more dangerous one.
“1 Hour”.
“I see. Let’s save it for emergency use along with the charge crystals. We’ll do some smaller obelisks while it recharges.”
“Sure.”
Looking around, Jay spotted a smaller obelisk. Walking there, he wondered to himself “Huh, since when did I become the leader… Well, I guess since she’s a ranged class it makes sense – plus she has probably been trained to follow orders her whole life. Maybe she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it.”
They conquered three smaller obelisks before trying a larger one again. Things went more smoothly this time, as both the skeletons and Anya focused on one level 4 while the other attempted a few graze attacks as well as passively charged up – though they were no match for the combined force of 3 skeletons and Anya’s attacks; doing some calculations Jay realised that each bayring could be killed in under 4 seconds if he took Anya’s damage into account.
The speed that they could kill the level 4 bayring’s was unimaginable, other adventurers of their level couldn’t even kill the level 2 bayring’s as quickly – plus they only had enough gold to buy single weapons with about 3 to 4 damage, each of them being the over-priced ones from Bertram.
Meanwhile, Jay’s minions had 5 daggers in total – equivalent to 5 adventurers without skills. The daggers crafted by Jay even had 5 damage. His class really was broken by all standards, he even made Anya’s unique class seem weak by comparison.
Travelling through the 2nd floor of the level 2 dungeon, they were beginning to run out of time.
They had conquered about 8 of the larger obelisks by this point and Anya had levelled up again. At one point, Anya didn’t dodge a pierce attack and revealed her other skill, the one she had since attaining the unique class – she simply turned to smoke and appeared approximately 10 meters away.
Jay understood why she didn’t use it before, it wasn’t an offensive skill, and neither would it have been helpful when they were socketining crystals into the obelisk from floor 1.
“Perhaps she compensated for the skill by spending all her time training with the crossbow” Jay thought.
Nevertheless, Jay made a mental note that she could do this – since becoming a necromancer, he didn’t let his guard down. He considered everyone his potential opponent. Besides, if she’s able to choose where she teleports to and uses a melee weapon she could easily backstab her opponent.
“We’ve been here for hours. It’s probably going to get dark on the outside too, and I don’t want to walk back through the forest at night. We should go.”
Anya considered this for a moment before eventually agreeing “Yeah ok. I’ll tell Sullivan it went well – of course I have to report about your class skills too, but don’t worry, only Sullivan and I know at this point.”
“Ok.” Jay didn’t want Anya to know that he hated this, perhaps it would breed mistrust between them – of course Jay didn’t trust either of them. He grasped the dynamics of their relationship quickly – he was the unwilling tool being used to power-level the guild master’s daughter; though he pretended he was thankful.
The pretence of being their partner hadn’t dropped yet, and Jay knew he had to maintain it so he could at least have the illusion of equal treatment.
A red circle appeared above Anya and she went through it as she willed to leave the dungeon. Jay was about to leave when he realised his creatures would probably cause a disturbance among the other adventurers.
“Sorry guys, I’ll bring you back when I’m alone again.” He unsummoned the three feeble creatures and added their bones back into his ring.
Oddly, the bone-daggers didn’t follow the other bones into the ring.
“Huh…” Jay picked them up and stored them in his inventory “Waste not, want not.”
“Time to go” he said to himself as a red ring appeared above him and pulled him into it; he didn’t even look up as he closed his eyes and fully relaxed in the zero-gravity environment.