Looking down the long set of stairs in front of me makes me kind of nervous about what to expect after such a hard boss encounter. With my new and amazing axe in hand, I slowly climbed down the stairs with everyone else following behind me.
"Ah!" Sophie suddenly screamed out causing me and everyone else to turn around. What I saw made me frown.
"Is everyone here?" I called out to do a head check.
"Yeah, Boss, everyone is here. It seemed to wait for all of us to enter the stairs before sealing us off." Steven answered.
The entrance to the boss room was sealed off with the same exact barrier as the one in the boss room on the first floor. This meant only one thing. "Looks like this will happen each time we kill a boss. But this is also good. We do not need to worry about our backs being attacked at this moment. Just keep an eye out."
With that said, I turned and continued down the stairs. The stairs were not just a straight path. They spiraled down for quite a while before finally coming to a stop in front of the entrance of another long dark tunnel. "Grace, send lights down the tunnel".
"Yes, Master!" Grace shouted happily. Seconds later, ten balls of light shot down the tunnel, each coming to a stop at a certain point in the tunnel. To be honest, this was a huge improvement from before. It seemed Grace's awakening helped her gain more control over her magic. Even the lights were brighter than before.
"Okay, same formation as always. But be extra careful with this tight tunnel." I shouted before gripping my axe and stepping into the tunnel. The floor here was a bit more uneven and slippery. Like the floor was covered in moss. We had to move much slower in order to keep our footing.
As we made our way down the tunnel keeping our eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. But the walls, while rocky, there were no deep crevices that I could see, and with how bright it was, there were no hidden places either. This made traveling down them less nerve-racking.
When we finally came to the end, Grace once more sent out an array of balls of lights that filled the large room, lighting every inch of it. What was revealed was a nest of hobgoblins and three goblin shamans, which made all of us grow silent. Strangely though was that they did not turn towards us or even seem to care about the new light that was filling the room.
"Boss, how should we do this? They are pretty clustered together." Leo asked as he looked into the room.
"How else but the same way we always do things. We already know the shaman's abilities, so we can test the waters a bit. But this time we will be doing it in this hall. I will set up a barrier that will cover the outside of the door and the wall around it. From the looks of it, there are around twenty hobgoblins and three shamans. I will pull and then tunnel them in one at a time. This will also give our tight quarters combat a bit of practice as well." It was actually not a bad idea to use this as practice for when we have no choice but to be elbow to elbow.
My eyes lit up as I waved my hand, causing a barrier to form at the entrance of the tunnel. "Alright, I will now go pull, be ready!"
"Yes!" Everyone answered at the same time. I chuckled and passed through the barrier. Gripping my axe with one hand, I raised the other and pointed a finger at the hobgoblins. I then fired off a small fireball at the closest hobgoblin.
"Graaaaahhh!!!" The goblin yelled out and looked around. As soon as it saw me, it cried out once more, causing the other goblins to turn and look at me before the whole mass of green flesh began moving towards me. I backpedaled through the barrier and waited on the other side for our prey to make its way over. "Remember no large scale attacks and only attack if it is possible. You do not want to hurt your teammates by accident."
The first hobgoblin made its way into the barrier, and on my signal, attacks began to rain down on it. It died so fast that I was quite surprised at the amount of damage being outputted. "Ummm…" I stared at the now hobgoblin corpse that took less than a minute to kill in awe. "Alright, I will let three in. Do the same as before."
Once again, the damage output was insane. Just a few items, and everyone was doing much more damage. I was quite happy to see this. In a matter of minutes, we cleared out all twenty hobgoblins and began moving on to the shamans. The only difference was that the shamans would not move through the barrier. They were much smarter than hobgoblins. This meant we had to fight in a more open manner.
"Boss, what will we do now?" Amanda asked as I stood there and looked at the three shaman goblins that were standing outside the barrier looking back at us. I couldn't help but think that they were just waiting for us to drop the barrier so they could bombard us with spells.
"Sally, Sophie!" I called out. With the way things were and with how easily we are doing damage now, I do believe we will not need as many barriers as we fight. I think if we continue as we are and can get a better understanding of our skills we will be able to move forward much faster. This is why I think I will teach range magic users some area of effect spells to quicken our progress through the dungeon.
""Yes!"" Both immediately came to my side. I am sure they already know what I have planned. "Sophie you are on the right, Sally on the left. I will take the middle. Sei, you are on barriers. Only use it if there is magic flying towards the back line. Everyone else will start with Sally's target! Let's do this!"
"""""""""""""Yeah!!!!"""""""""""""
