Dungeon of Knowledge

Chapter 147: A Necromancer’s Value

Teagan “Ok, everybody ready?” Teagan asked, getting nods and monosyllabic grunts of affirmation as she surveyed her team. Vivian always stressed the importance of explicitly confirming engagement before entering the sewers, and she was determined to follow the proper procedure.

Especially considering she had two recruits today. Willow, Braden, and even Basil were all experienced enough that she didn’t necessarily have to remind them, but Nicholas and Blair had needed a lot of hand-holding to prevent them from accidentally killing themselves and the rest of the party in the process.

Seth was an entirely unknown quantity. This would be his first trial with their group, and she had no idea what to expect, other than what he had shared about his class abilities. She studied him for a few moments, finding it difficult to believe that such a quiet and unassuming boy had one of the most feared and dangerous classes in existence – well, it had been forced on him.

“Ok, our marching order is Braden and Nicholas up front, Seth you go next, then me, and Willow brings up the rear with Basil. Let’s go.” The necromancer was going to be a problem for her, she just knew it. Vivian told her privately that Seth was trialing with the guild, and insisted he would be a strong addition to her team. But it looked like a pity play – or worse. All of the recent candidates she had seen so far were lackluster at best. Blair had flat-out refused to join them today when she heard what his class was. Nicholas complained incessantly about carrying a level three and how Seth was going to hold them all back.

“Watch your step at the bottom,” Braden called up. “There’s a lot of trash down here.”

When she released the rusty iron rung and felt the familiar damp moss and cold, crumbling brick of the sewers under her bare feet, she saw what he meant. In the middle of the small, dank chamber, directly beneath the overhead iron grate, she found a large pile of broken wood, smelly rotten food, and a dizzying array of other discards.

“Are the merchants using the sewer to dump their junk, now?” Willow asked from behind as she hopped off the ladder landing lightly on the balls of her feet.

“I don’t know, but I haven’t seen this before,” Braden answered, stepping forward to guard the chamber entrance just like they had practiced.

“Nicholas, stop looking through the trash, you’re our scout,” Teagan said, frustrated to have to remind him, yet again.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, moving up beside Braden.

“I thought we covered this last time,” Teagan grumbled, keeping her eyes on the dark sewer tunnel as they began to push forward. It was familiar now, but there were new mushrooms providing a dim light, and the sewer water seemed clean. Certainly, the foul reek that had assaulted her nose the first time they came down here was gone.

She would have been content to continue leveling up with just her friends Braden and Willow, but, somehow, Aiden and his team had passed her, taking the top spot. Vivian insisted that her team needed to grow if she wanted to catch up – and that a three-person group would likely stall out in bronze. But that meant trialing new recruits. At least Basil had worked out well – he had no combat abilities, although he did provide them with much-needed potions along the way, and shared the money earned from whatever herbs and plants he harvested with the team without her even having to ask. She frowned at the back of the rogue striding jauntily down the tunnel seemingly not even glancing down the side passages.

“Recruits will be good for you,” she grumbled under her breath, echoing what Vivian had told her. Instead of becoming stronger and more effective, they seemed to be slower and worse. The risk was higher.

“Braden, in the water ten yards ahead, slime.”

Willow’s voice broke her train of thought, snapping her attention back to the damp sewer and their safety.

she thought, evaluating the threats quickly with her Identify skill.

Combat began with Braden’s Rush and the wet smack of his shield into the poisonous slime monsters. With the ease of practice, she fell into her routine, dropping her Free Action totem near Braden, just in case he stepped on one of the roots traps, and readied her Cure spell. As soon as the slime spat its toxic poison at him, she used it, removing the poison before it dealt enough damage to even require her healing.

Nicholas appeared from the shadows behind the slimes, brandishing his two bone swords, this time doing a respectable job of positioning himself. Willow danced across the channel shooting arrows, and everything seemed to be going well.

Basil was standing back out of harm’s way, and beside him was Seth, as far as she could tell just watching the fight. Her attention was dragged back to the melee, and she used her Cure again, this time removing the poison on Nicholas when he drew the attention of one of the slimes to himself and got spat on.

She pressed her lips together in annoyance, but to her surprise the slime popped, and then, with a dull slap of Braden’s shield, the second slime collapsed to the ground in a splash of wobbly chunks.

“Wow, that curse is fantastic, Seth,” Willow exclaimed, her voice filled with wonder.

“What curse?”

“Curse?”

She and Nicholas asked simultaneously.

“Seth put Amplify Damage on both slimes, that’s why they died so fast,” Willow said, smiling at the quiet boy standing at the back of the group. “That was you, right?”

“Yes,” Seth answered. “I can’t do much until I get some minions, but I do have the curse.”

He had mentioned the curse to her before they left the guild, but she hadn’t thought much of it.

“Um, Teagan? Can I have those corpses?” Seth asked.

“Sure,” she answered. “You need them to raise skeletons or something, right?” Vivian always helped her to at least get a general idea of her recruits’ abilities before heading into danger, so she knew he needed corpses for his summoning skills. It was just that so much depended on how the person would use their abilities in action.

“Slimes don’t have skeletons to raise, but I can do zombies too,” Seth said walking over to the corpses of the slimes. He did something, and the more intact corpse quivered, goop drawing together and coalescing into more-or-less the original shape of the Toxic Slime before it wobbled and then crawled its way over to stand beside him.

“Gross,” Nicholas said.

Teagan thought.

“Ok, I’m ready,” he said. “I can’t raise the other one, there’s not enough of it left.”

***

Seth’s class, Teagan decided, had a slow start – but each time they killed the Toxic Slimes, he attempted to add them to his army, and now that he had three, they were flying through the sewer with a speed she had thought impossible. His Amplify Damage curse was far better than she had expected, but he was also contributing a substantial amount of additional damage through his minions. Probably not as much as Willow or Nicholas, but if she counted the effects of his curse, he was probably responsible for just as much of their damage as the two higher-level damage classes.

She dropped her totem again, curing Braden as he grappled with three Toxic Slimes. With the extra damage, Willow was being more aggressive with the pulls. Seth’s slimes were already engaged, and she was happy to find his zombies did not need to be cured.

Suddenly, roots sprang from the mossy sewer floor several yards past the fight, and Nicholas appeared in the middle of the trap, his stealth broken.

“Nicholas, what the heck are you doing so far away?” Teagan shouted.

“Sneaking!”

“You’re supposed to be ambushing the slimes.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just get me out of this stupid trap.”

“You’re too far away, and my Totem is on recharge.”

“Fuck.”

Teagan thought, annoyed with his antics already.But as she had that thought, two dark shapes shimmered into view beside him and their daggers flashed brightly, slipping between the ribs in his back. Blood sprayed across the damp brick walls as Nicholas screamed.

She cast her heal, spending mana like water, desperately trying to stay ahead of the gleaming flickers of the nimble daggers drenched with the blood of her dying teammate. Toxic spit hit Braden, but she couldn’t afford the time to cure him unless she wanted to let Nicholas die. She vented her frustration in her mind, but she was losing the battle to the vicious Kobold rogues that were tearing through Nicholas’s body like stabbing a struggling watermelon that couldn’t get away.

“Help!” she called out. She was going to lose one of them, and soon.

“On it. I’ll get the rogues.”

To her immense surprise, it was Seth’s voice that answered.

“I’ll work on the slimes,” Willow responded.

Seth’s zombie slimes turned and squelched down the sewer channel toward the struggling Nicholas, while Willow pulled a slime off Braden with her arrows.

She healed frantically, draining her mana rapidly, but the crawling slimes reached the Kobold rogues quickly, and with a few blasts of poison spit and stubby pseudopod strikes, the rogues rounded on Seth’s zombies and began hitting them instead.

Relief welled up in a great tide as her heal landed on Nicholas and his health stayed stable, rather than the precipitous freefall it had been executing for the last thirty seconds.

“Thanks,” she said, snatching the potion Basil handed her and downing it without even looking at what it was. Her mana began to regenerate slowly as she used it to cure Braden. He was about half health, but she would need to wait a little for her mana before she could help him more.

Down at the far end of the sewer tunnel, the zombie slimes were still moving, drawing the Kobold rogues away from Nicholas who still struggled with the twisting roots, spewing a litany of profanity.

As soon as the monsters were off to the other side of the tunnel, a chilling scream split the air as something black shot out from Seth’s outstretched palm and slammed into the two Kobold rogues. The darted back and forth and, if she could believe her eyes, passed through the Kobolds’ bodies as they screeched in pain. Another thing shot out, and then another.

“Incoming!” Willow yelled as she sprinted past with a slime trailing her.

Down in the darkness, past Nicholas, two new Kobolds appeared – the green-scaled warrior variety – sprinting toward them with swords raised and their scales gleaming in the dim light. Their chirping battle cries echoed weirdly in the tunnel.

“Uh, guys, help?” Nicholas screeched, panic pushing his voice into the higher registers.

Teagan stared at the disaster bearing down on their little party. A loud bang ripped through the chirping cries and a ripple of black energy pulsed through the Kobold rogues and the zombie slimes. Then a second, and third bang, followed by two chimes and the incredible sight of the two Kobolds simultaneously collapsing to the ground.

“Adds to you, Seth,” Willow called, firing two arrows at the new sword-wielding Kobolds before they could gut Nicholas. She sprinted down the tunnel, drawing them toward Seth’s slimes.

But the boy was no longer waiting at the back. Teagan swiveled her head,

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/Dubat-litrpg