After dinner everyone is beat from a long day on the road, but Cain is still curious about the contents of the dungeon, so he opts to do a solo run. Well, as solo as he can get with Vala and Nemu around. Cautious of enemy spell effects, he again picks two pairs of Kone and one of Char as his Supporters. No adventurer ever said they had too many tanks, healers or debuff removers with them after all.
Interestingly, he cannot change the summons from Kone's Beast Companions Skill, the only option is the snapping turtle tanks she used last dungeon. Cain isn't sure if it's a quirk of the system or a result of them being the active option when he updated her recording.
The first groups they find are mostly Dark Elves, with spider and Pixie support. Cixelcid wasn't joking, almost every pull is different. Cain is certain he's gotten fifty new types of Dark Elves alone in the first few minutes.
The first boss is exactly what Cain was looking for. Huge, winged, and covered in translucent black scales, a Smoke Dragon. That's one species closer to a Dragon Companion. If he can kill it that is.
The Dragon spews out a dark cloud that does lingering damage to everyone it hits, then follows up with a Flurry of claw attacks while their vision is obstructed. One of the Turtles is smashed to the ground and heavily damaged., making Cain wonder how the other group dealt with it. Did the Golems take the brunt of it, or is Cixelcid's avoidance good enough to handle that?
The much neglected Swarm of Wasps are the stars of this fight. They've got a knack for stinging sensitive areas and distracting the Dragon just when it's about to launch attacks. Weight of numbers does the rest, carving the Dragon apart with great efficiency, if not grace.
The level of damage Cain can inflict upon a dungeon is getting far ahead of his actual level, and he hasn't even started using the Lesser Demon Army skill yet. It's time for things to get broken though. Cain realized just a few pulls ago that he had missed the very easiest way to record new forms.
All this time he's been looking at them, from close enough to see their information and letting the skill passively record it. But in the dungeon, that's not necessary. The system interface has a combat log, with the name of every unit they engage coming up in the listing. All he ever had to do was keep the log open in his interface and the skill would record them as seen as soon as they come up.
With that in mind, Cain calls out the Lesser Demons from the Guild Skill, but gets an error message in return.
[Must be in Guild Party]
Oh, yeah, nobody is with him, so he's not in a party at all right now. Cain is sure there's an easy work around for that, but he can figure it out later.
Instead he changes his Lesser Sorceror Summon to a Naga Regenerist, a cleric type Demon, before using Lesser Demon Army to copy both Lesser and Greater Golems plus Vala and the Lesser Sorcerers. Creating two extra groups of demons with intelligent commanders and reasonable healing ability. Everything they engage no matter how far away should enter his combat log, so he sends the two groups off to clear side tunnels and verify his findings.
Yes, the forms are being recorded just fine without him seeing them personally, so Cain leads the main group onwards, into swarms of small flying Lizards and young Drakes. The Drakes count towards his Dragon total, but the smallest forms of flying creatures do not. Still, he's making good progress.
Ten minutes and a flood of new forms later, the three tunnels combine at the entrance to a Boss room. This should be highly entertaining. If Cain isn't mistaken, that's a look of panic he sees in the Elite Drake Lord's face as he sits atop his mount watching dozens and dozens of enemies forming up to face him.
"Keep to your groups and advance." Cain calls out, still preferring vocal commands to silent ones. He's not sure where the habit came from, maybe an old anime from his past life where the main character called out his skills? Or maybe it was just to keep his apartment from feeling so quiet and lonely. But it had proven persistent.
On the bright side Nemu and Vala usually answer, so he's not entirely talking to himself anymore.
The barrage of skills is met with a wave of fire before the Pained scream of the dying Drake Lord fills the air.
[Bosses defeated 2/3]
As soon as they leave that room, the dungeon turns to a kaleidoscope of pastels and opalescent colors that remind Cain of a really intense hallucination he once had while trying a new medication in his past life. Other than the colors it seems to be the same layout as the last section, so they go again, finding they're facing a multi colored version of the previous boss.
The colorful skill might be a new form, but it's no better armor, and the second Lord faces a similar fate. That was an interesting change from the usual, but Cain isn't getting a notification of dungeon competition. So that wasn't the final boss.
Turning around, the trippy dungeon is gone and a single room is visible behind them. The Horde of the Darklight Horde moves in to investigate, finding an Ancient Prismatic Dragon and an array of youngsters in various colors. Most excellent, more Dragons.
[First Solo Clear Confirmed: Bonus Boss Enabled]
Oh, so it was supposed to be the final boss. Cain thanks the system for the chance to record more Dragons though. He hasn't had a chance to look at his list in a while, but with the Dragon whelps, Drakes, baby Drakes, and bosses he should be close now, and they've got a whole room to go.
The Dragons initiate the attack, charging into the Demon Horde with claws and teeth bared, casting defensive barriers and offensive spells as they go. They're met with wave upon wave of attacks from the Scourge Casters before the Wrath Bringers and Snapping Turtles charge out to meet them head on.
The room looks like the opening to an apocalyptic movie, fire brimstone, Poisoned lakes and Acid Rain fill the area, with a fog of smoke blanketing the ground. It's so thick he can hardly see the low moving Lamia Scourge Casters until they raise up to attack again.
Every Healer is working double time, and Cain is making the best of his Might of Many skill to drop huge amounts of damage on the Prismatic Dragon, who prefers to fight at range using its magical skills.
Unthinking, Cain looks down in his interface at the combat log.
[Dragon Forms Recorded 50/50: Defeat Target to Compete Quest]
Oh no, what was the last Dragon to engage? None of them seem to have changed yet.
Legendary Prismatic Dragon. The final boss. This could be a very fatal mistake for him, as Cain wasn't expecting to have found so many forms of Dragons in the dungeon.
The Prismatic Dragon laughs in victory as its damage soars, moving the state of healing from working hard to struggling to keep the tanks alive. There's not much Cain can do though, he's already got ten healers in the group. More if you count all six copies of Vala and their healing and the Char clones healing Totems.
Switching the Shaman out isn't an option though, as the breath attacks of so many Dragons requires full spectrum cleansing, from curses to debuffs to poison. She's the only Summon he knows that can deal with most of those at the same time. Cain turns his attacks on the less threatening targets, hoping to clear them out so he can work to down the Prismatic Dragon and gain his Lesser Dragon Companion.
The Dragons have started falling now, succumbing to the firepower of the group, and the Boss Roars. It seems that the Prismatic Dragon's breath type attack is being used for the first time this battle. The effect devastates his ranks, breaking the Summoning Spell and immediately dismissing the Golems and the bears, leaving them with only Vala and the Guardian Turtles as Frontline fighters. Cain calls everything back, starting with the Greater Golems and casting Demon Army on them.
That at least stabilized their lines, but his mana is flat lined by the time everything is back. Even with the increased regeneration from the Totems. Without his attacks the Dragons are almost holding their own, some even gaining HP as the Prismatic Dragon focuses on healing the brood.
Cain waited a moment to regain mana before beginning to attack again, desperately hoping that the Spell Canceling effect, or whatever that breath did has a cool down. If it did it again right away he's in big trouble.
Buffed up Lightning Arrows again Arc through the Dragons, bringing a white one down, which causes an immediate decrease in the healing from the Dragon side. It was in combat though, and not casting, does it have a passive healing effect? That would be amazing. Just thinking of what that single Dragon could do in a raid group makes Cain smile.
Companion form isn't up to him, but he sure hopes that a Lesser Dragon Companion will have a skill somewhere near that awesome.
It takes an entire hour before the last of the Smaller Dragons is finally brought low, and two more castings of that roar that shatters his Golems. So a 30 minute cool down. Cain noticed on the second attack one Wrath Bringer survived, so magic resistance matters against that attack.
Without Support the huge Prismatic Dragon isn't faring so well, taking large amounts of damage every second, and unable to attack fast enough, even with huge swings of its tail, to destroy the Horde of Demons overwhelming it.
[Opponent Defeated: Quest Complete]
[Generating Lesser Dragon Companion]
