To avoid being ambushed from behind, we parked on top of one of the buildings within the cove, planning to take our time clearing this outer area first. Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry about anything like time limits for raiding this dungeon. If we wanted to take all day to get it done, that was our prerogative.
As with the giant skeletal dungeon, I set my Ki Clone with the respawn anchor near where we parked, serving as our respawn point for the dungeon raid. Afterwards, we repositioned to another building, just so that we wouldn’t be traced back to our respawn point.
Finally, once we were ready to start, Diane and I nodded at Bella. The elven woman seemed hesitant, looking at the group of humanoid enemies below. Their levels were considerably higher than her own, but they did not wear much in the way of armor. They had simple headbands and open vests, with either skirts or rugged jeans depending on their gender.
For weapons, they carried a saber in one hand, and didn’t seem to have much else. Taking a deep breath, Bella drew her bow and took aim. A golden ring surrounded her arrow as she held it. Once she released her energy arrow, five matching arrows flew out at different targets. In total, there were six arrows split among the hearts and heads of three targets.
Immediately, the other nearby pirates turned in alarm, trying to find the location of the hidden sniper. However, they hadn’t clearly seen where the arrows had come from, and could only guard against our general direction. “Keep firing.” Diane said, leaning forward and lunging forward, activating her stealth to weave through the enemies.
Bella nodded, and indeed continued her steady attacks. However, the second volley allowed the pirate mob to identify the location of our attacks, and they began to charge towards us. To combat this, I pulled out my own bow, joining Bella in her onslaught.
It had been a while since I had the chance to train my archery, so I was still a few levels shy of reaching the master rank. In addition, I didn’t have the various arrow skills that Bella had. I could have probably asked for them, but that would feel as if I were trying to take her position in the team.
Still, my arrows struck out together with Bella’s, piercing into the heads of the charging pirates. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure what Diane was doing, as I didn’t see her appear to assassinate any of the forces lingering at the back.
As Bella and I continued our arrow onslaught, the pirates began to climb over the corpses of their fallen allies. Some of them even picked the bodies up to use them as shields as they approached.
Once they got to the building we were stationed on, only about a third of their number had been killed from the nearby area. At that time, Diane appeared on one of the nearby ships where the mobs had already cleared out. She hid behind a box, taking a deep breath, and formed a hand seal.
Immediately, several patterns on the ground began to light up beneath the charging pirates, strange runes drawn within them. The pirates began to let out horrific screams, staggering backwards and clawing at their own faces. The blood in their bodies, and the blood draining from the various bodies that they had carried with them as shields, all burst into red-hot flames.
My eyes widened in horror as I watched one of the pirates quite literally claw her own face off from the pain of her blood boiling beneath the surface. Once the last of the pirates had fallen, Diane ran over to us, using more conventional means of stealth since her mana was burnt out.
“What… was that?” I asked, seeing her pale face when she returned.
“Remote Detonation, the evolved form of Fire Trap. I created it while mixing in the runes of Fire and Blood, to make a Burning Blood Trap that I could trigger remotely. Takes a while to set up, and burns a lot of mana when I use it on multiple targets.”
“…Remind me to never make you mad.” I muttered under my breath, shaking my head. “How long do you need to recover?”
Diane glanced at the corner of her vision. “One more minute for the Mana Burn status to recover naturally. Probably about five minutes after that before I’m back at full.”
I pursed my lips, looking around. “Let’s make it to that island. I can use my Nature’s Warden skill to accelerate your recovery.” I said, leading the duo towards the only natural landmass in this entire area. Thankfully, most of the exterior pirates had already been killed in the most painful way imaginable, so those left were flocking to that area to try to find the intruder.
Once my feet touched the stone island, I immediately felt the response from my Nature’s Warden skill, a green light radiating from the ground at Diane and Bella’s feet. Diane looked at her status window, and nodded her head. “This should help. Give me another two minutes, and I’ll be ready to go another round.”
I nodded my head, trying not to imagine the horrors that Diane would unleash once her skills had a large reduction to their costs. While Diane recovered, Bella and I observed the remaining pirates. There were only about twenty left, out of what was originally more than a hundred in the outer region of the cove.
However, we had no idea how many were lurking within the dungeon proper. The interior of the dungeon could be as large as just a single ship, or it might lead to another space entirely. Given the strangeness of the dungeons we had seen at sea so far, there was no telling!
Either way, once Diane was ready, we launched our second round of attacks. This time, Diane didn’t use her burning blood trap. Instead, she slipped out with her stealth, and began cutting at the tendons of the pirates to disable them delivering fast, light slashes before moving on.
This was a less flashy, although much faster way to deal with all of the remaining enemies, since they couldn’t properly walk or lift their swords after Diane passed by them. One of them tried to guess her position, releasing a series of ropes that struck towards the empty air. Diane paid special attention to this individual, slashing all four off their limbs before finally piercing their skull.
Again, Diane returned to the island to recover her used mana within the recovery aura. Afterwards, we walked around, We received a handful of coins, some torn cloth, and a single rusted sword from the one hundred dungeon mobs. And since they were humans, I had absolutely no intention of dismantling them for parts.
Finally, it was time to enter the dungeon itself. We made our way towards the entrance, which took the form of a ship that looked like it was built into the side of the island, a large door along its hull. Holding my shield in front of myself, I led the way forward.
Once inside, we saw that the interior really did take the form of a large ship. We were located somewhere in the hull, with groups of pirates patrolling between the rooms. With the three of us acting carefully, we eliminated the groups one by one, looting them to remove any evidence. Our preferred tactic was simply to strike at their heads from stealth, eliminating the entire group at once.
This continued through the next several rooms, until we came across what appeared to be the mid-boss of the dungeon, the Quartermaster. This pirate was heavily armored, carrying a large saber in one hand. I looked at Bella, signalling for her to strike first.
Predictably, Bella charged up her Sundering Arrow, launching it at the Quartermaster’s helmet. However, rather than piercing completely through as it had done with the skeleton’s helmet in the previous dungeon, the arrow clinked against the helmet and bounced off to dig into the wall.
Enraged, the Quartermaster charged in our direction, unable to see us. Despite this, he charged blindly, swinging his sword in fast, sweeping arcs. “Where are ya!?” He shouted in a rage.
I clenched my fist, lightning crackling within it before lashing out like a whip, wrapping around his armored wrist. The Quartermaster let out a cry of pain, but didn’t drop his sword, managing to take another step closer as Diane lunged forward. As soon as she was close, I dismissed the lightning, not wanting it to affect her when she struck.
Thankfully, the Quartermaster was still briefly stunned by the lightning, and unable to see the impending strike from Diane’s daggers slipping under his helmet. Blood spurted from his neck as Diane jumped back, and he slumped down to the ground. “So, proper armor at this level can still stop your arrow.” Diane noted, and Bella nodded her head.
“S-sorry. That caught me by surprise.” She said, but Diane shook her head.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m not blaming you. It’d be a bit ridiculous if we had managed to one-shot the midboss like a regular mob.” As Diane said that, she began to rummage around, looking for the chest. We had already found two thus far, but we had not managed to get the skill she wanted. While we did get the Wood Mend skill, I had no interest in it as my Martial Construction seemed far superior. That and Wood Mend turned out to be a Magic skill after Bella learned it.
“Aha!” Diane pushed aside a bookshelf, revealing a hidden chest behind it. She rubbed her hands together, opening the chest with an eager expression. One that grew brighter as she pulled out a skill book. “Drake! Appraisal!” She said, holding the book up.
I chuckled, shaking my head and appraising the book as requested. “It’s Rope Bind.” I said, and Diane immediately learned it herself.
“Magic skill.” She said, clicking her tongue. “Looks like I won’t be looking for another copy for you.”
“I don’t really need a skill like this, anyways.” I said, shaking my head. “If it were some form of enhancement skill, I would be all for it. I’d go out of my way to try to convert it into a Martial skill with our last enchantment book.”
Diane nodded her head in agreement, looking back at us. “I’ve got what I wanted here. Should we keep going to kill the boss, or turn around now?”
I thought about that for a moment. From what I had seen, this dungeon really didn’t have anything to offer me. All of the skills that it dropped were magic, and the basic loot was horrible. “How’s the experience for the two of you?” I asked, and Diane glanced at her status.
“Decent, but we’ve cleared out almost all the enemies already. The boss won’t give much for that.”
“Same.” Bella nodded her head. “I’m up to level ninety-four now. If we come back and run this dungeon again another day, I might be able to hit level one hundred.”
“I’ll put a waypoint here, then.” Diane chuckled, manipulating her map. “For now, let’s head back. Drake’s still got to do his own training for the day. And we don’t want our cloud to drift too far.”
I nodded my head, leaving the dungeon together with the others to drive back to our temporary home. Although this was still a long training period that I had to go through, at least it was going to be broken up by the regular dungeon raids and exploration.
