Five and a half weeks passed, and the party rarely, if ever, saw the natural light of day. Frequently, a full week would pass where, between five nights spent in the Dungeon and leaving to return to its clutches before sunrise only to return after sunset days later, even in the summer, there was no opportunity to see the sun. The party threw themselves at the monsters, the fifth floor of Purcell's Dungeon falling before them. Those delvers that had been on their level were quickly left behind as the party lost themselves in constant battle against orcs and trolls. On the fifth floor, the warbands frequently had six orcs, and on the sixth, orc captains joined the bands' ranks while enslaving trolls and bringing the larger, fiercer monsters into battle.
The party's first journey onto the sixth floor when Skandr, Muti, and Astrid reached level 18, had ended in failure and a swift retreat to the fifth floor. Once every member of the party had reached level 18, they pushed themselves back into the sixth floor. On the fifth floor, they were managing to stay slightly ahead of schedule to reach level 20 in time, but only by a couple thousand experience, far from what they had hoped for. This next floor, as all did, had much better experience opportunities, and, used to fighting against packs of over a dozen gnolls, the party found their footing easily against the orcs' growing numbers.
"They've still got the troll chained!" Astrid shouted as the two orc warriors made their way down the mountain with whooping war cries. "It'll be slow, so focus on the captain!"
After months of fighting against the orcs and trolls, the party was much more comfortable at dealing with everything that came their way. As with the gnolls, the leader of the pack or warband was far more troublesome than any of its subordinates. Astrid quickly came to hate any monster that had an aura, like the gnoll shamans and chieftains, or now, the orc captains. These new monsters had a new type of aura, and in Astrid's opinion, it was the most annoying they'd come in contact with yet, as it simply strengthened every other Skill in the enemy war band. The warriors' scream? Strong enough that Astrid couldn't take it face on, even if she was prepared. The raiders' throws? Fast and hard enough to make Astrid stumble back even while pushing mana through her greaves. The trolls' regeneration? Strong enough to recover from broken bones and torn ligaments in seconds, while regenerating lost limbs in a minute or less.
To make the captains even more difficult to deal with, they wielded thick wooden shields and bone–studded leather armor. From behind their protective armor, the bastards swung their heavy implements like their warrior kin, but the thick iron chains they swung as flails whipped out from behind their shield as they advanced like trained infantrymen instead of ragged mercenaries.
Now that Benedict and Felix had reached level 18 as well, Astrid entrusted the three warriors in the front to the Bodyguard. With a couple steady steps, she evaded their attention as Felix used Draw Anger to close the distance before then slicing through joints with impressive dexterity. His new Bronze tiered skill, Axemanship, guided his every attack to strike more accurately while the edge cut more deeply than it would have been able to before he got the Skill. He roared as the weapon flashed in his hands, cutting two warriors arms off at the elbow. They continued to throw themselves at him in a maddened rage, but Astrid couldn't continue to pay attention to that.
Instead, she slammed the edge of her shield into the troll as it lunged at her, ducking her head out of the range of the chains that jangled around its wrists. She circled around the beast and dodged back and away from the monster as Skandr's lightning javelin smashed into its chest, though it started to shrug off the attack very quickly. Her focus remained on the captain, and she whirled to throw herself forward towards it.
With each level, as her attributes grew higher, Astrid had better control over her body, though she lamented that her Power and Fortitude were at 98 and 99 respectively, just shy of passing the 100 benchmark and granting her a greater level of control over how she would wage battle. For now, there was no reason to think about what ifs, and Astrid feinted rushing forward. The trick worked, and the captain swung forward, letting the thick chains slam into the ground in front of her. Stone shattered under the attack and she pushed forward, stepping on the chain and pushing mana into her greaves to make herself nearly immovable. Knowing what would follow, she twisted with her whole weight and smashed her hammer into the orc's shield. Wood splintered, and she took the opportunity to twist back with her shield to slam into the opposite side of the captain where it was mostly unprotected.
It squealed like a pig as her shield's edge cracked its right arm's elbow. The chain, still wrapped around its wrist, uncoiled slightly, and it swung its arm haphazardly in an attempted returning blow. It was unable to dislodge Astrid's stance on the end of the chain, and instead just made itself scream again in pain. Astrid pressed her advantage, no longer caring about standing on the chain as she dealt a series of whirling overhead blows to the monster's shield. It kept every defense raised, but wood splintered and broke before her rage. Finally, with a roar, Astrid broke the monster's guard, and it stumbled back. With its body exposed, she lunged forward and drilled her shoulder into the slightly taller orc's sternum. Breath wheezed between its tusks, and as it bent over, Astrid shifted her position. Then, with a roar of effort, she lifted the captain just to drill it back down into the ground. With the wind entirely knocked out of it, Astrid raised her hammer and dealt death two quick blows.
Mountain Orc Captain slain. 62 Experience gained, split among party.
As held true at every watershed before the delvers gained more attributes per level than the monsters did, and even though the monster outleveled her, Astrid completely overpowered it. With the captain dead in only a dozen short seconds after first contact with Astrid, the rest of the orcs and the troll lost the buff from their leader. No sooner than she'd killed the monster did the troll leap onto Astrid's back. She's been prepared for it, and rolled with the hit. Her right shoulder hit the ground first, and she continued the momentum, drawing on all of her strength and agility as she did so with a smile on her face, ready to completely evade the ambush. The troll's chains tangled her legs and, instead of vaulting straight to her feet, Astrid and the troll found themselves sprawled out on the ground, neither ready for the situation.
"Skandr, don't you dare!" Astrid called as she saw him preparing to send another javelin her way. The electricity would travel up the chains, as they learned before, and Astrid wasn't about to just let herself get fried. Instead, she held her shield close as the troll roared its rage to the skies and thrashed madly. The chains caught in some of the buckles on Astrid's legs, and yanked her back and forth as it tried to hit her. It raised its fist and hammered down at her face, which Astrid wasn't able to intercept with her shield, but instead took on her right shoulder. She grunted in pain but continued fighting, adjusting her hold on her hammer to be right under the head. She punched the steel head into the monster's ribs several times, trading blows with the beast like two unthinking brutes. The trolls' regeneration and Astrid's armor respectively kept them both in the fight until Muti appeared.
The Rogue buried her straight blade up under the troll's ribs and into its chest, where she twisted the blade and wrenched it out. The troll whirled on the Barbarian, purple blood running down its legs and onto Astrid who remained somewhat trapped underneath it. Trapped, but not out of the fight, the Warrior raised her hammer and smashed it two times into the inside of the troll's knee, buckling outward as Muti raised her messer sword and chopped down on the troll's neck. The monster's spine gave away under her attack, and it fell, dead.
Astrid managed to get herself out of the way of the worst of the blood as it poured out of the corpse, but as she stood, she looked down and saw the nearly violet ichor covering her legs as she finally untangled herself from the chains.
"Leader… You might be a fool."
"Today, I think I am." Astrid responded as she looked at the remains of the battlefield. Felix and Benedict had taken care of the Warriors, with Skandr giving the assistance that anybody needed from afar. He continued to become more and more of a threat from a distance, able to pick off weaker enemies without anybody else's help, though that was a greater drain on his mana than was worth it most of the time. Even so, he showed his prowess more and more every day, now that he'd crossed his 100 Magical Potency milestone.
"What were you thinking, trying to become an acrobat in the middle of a fight?" Benedict laughed as he looked at Astrid.
Astrid sighed and unlatched her helmet just long enough to scratch at her temple and shrug. "Mostly, a whole lot of nothing. I was falling forward, and after literally no thought, I thought I could roll out of there. Turns out, dragging a bunch of buckles and individual, pointy parts of metal through hanging chains is not what most people would call a wise decision."
Benedict started to open his mouth again, but Astrid raised a warning finger. "I will hold you down and get this blood in your mouth if you keep running it. Make wise decisions or suffer stupid consequences."
Benedict chuckled and offered a bow of conciliatory defeat. Then, he set about cutting the ears free from the orcs while Skandr stood nearby with his eyes half lidded. Astrid knew he was drawing mana into himself, recovering from his heavy usage of his Skills and spells, so she said nothing. Instead, she gathered up the clubs from the warriors and began cutting the extra wood from the iron to bring back to Purcell, whenever it was that they ended up returning. They still had planned another two days and had packed for two more after that, so it wouldn't be long before they weren't harvesting any of the materials larger than a troll fang or ear. For now, they'd seen an acceptable amount of progress, and, hopefully, they'd be in a position to be able to buy some mediocre Iron tier equipment before they began the Trials.
Just a couple short minutes passed before the party moved onto the next target, their minds entirely focused on the next step.
***
Astrid killed the final orc warrior as Muti dealt with the raiders. There'd been three of the ranged orcs this time, and the Rogue had been forced to take a more cautious approach than usual with them. It was no secret that Muti hated any moment in which she felt like there was any comparison between her and the other members of the party with her on the disadvantaged side. Regardless, it was what it was, and Muti finally enjoyed the opportunity to show off her new ability to cut through enemies with her mana strengthening her strikes. As Astrid gained levels, she realized that her childlike understanding of "higher level equals higher mana, and magical Classes equal more mana than physical Classes," wasn't exactly right. Instead, there was an additional quality behind it, something that hadn't ever stuck with her when it had been explained to her before. There hadn't been a shortage of people who tried to explain it to her, but it was something that was impossible to explain as anything other than a greater familiarity with mana then gave greater reserves.
In retrospect, she knew she hadn't paid attention when her father had taught her regarding talismans and Talismaristry, she hadn't been able to bring herself to. Even so, she'd listened to his explanations of how mana worked, how it flowed through your body, and how someone could use their connection with the world to recover their mana more actively than how it naturally did passively. Due to the way that she learned this, Astrid found that she had a greater mana pool to draw from than she'd thought she would be able to otherwise. After all, she was the same level as and had the same mental stats as Felix did, but he exhausted his mana reserves much quicker than she did.
As Muti decapitated the final raider, Astrid smiled, looking forward to hitting level 19 herself today. Once she did, she knew that she would be able to shift her fighting style from so basic as it had been so far to something more flexible, being able to use her body as a shield and her hammer much better than before. She checked her experience and smiled.
33,124/34,000
Just a few more. Astrid cut the ears from the captain's corpse in front of her before sawing the troll fangs free from the monster's mouth. Then, with a nod at Muti, they left the bodies to be reclaimed by the Dungeon.
***
Skandr
Being the first person to have crossed the 100 points in any one attribute milestone was a blessing and a curse. Mostly a blessing, but Skandr didn't mind occasionally dwelling on the negative. After all, it was what helped him to push himself to keep up with his party members at all. The power that came from having over 100 Magical Potency couldn't be understated. His spells came more easily, the sigils didn't strain his fingers nearly so much, and the chants flowed from his tongue like water. That, paired with his enhanced mana sensitivity from upgrading Mana Manipulation was glorious. Truly, with this qualitative change in his abilities, Skandr went from being able to support the party a little without exhausting himself or instead exhausting himself and helping them out to instead being able to almost effortlessly stun an entire warband, knock out a troll, or kill a runaway raider.
The curse of his newfound power was knowing that once everyone else passed those same milestones, he'd be back where he'd been before, a somewhat unremarkable mage fighting to remain relevant to the rest of his party. Sure, they all said that his presence was key and his efforts were more than enough to help them, and logically he could see that, but that didn't change the subtle hopelessness that threatened to wash over him. When he got the Class Lightningmage, he saw himself calling storms and smiting his enemies. Then, he'd become a wizard dwelling in a massive tower that could overthrow his father's family and cause them to beg at his feet, to beg at the grave of his mother. Instead, he'd been a one shock chump, able to throw one impressive bit of magic before he had to take a nap. Like a child.
He knew that tomorrow he'd be fine. He always was, and he could see the difference that he made in delving alongside his party. Further, Skandr looked forward to his Iron class, and he was confident that with the rest of his party, they could get a boon from the Great One in the Wandering Trials.
That didn't help as he watched Astrid obliterate a warband all by herself the moment she hit level 19. While her mana reserves weren't quite as profound as his own, he knew that she could draw about as much mana out as Benedict could, making her tied for second in the party. And she was a Warrior! They weren't supposed to understand mana like this!
The damn woman didn't care about established expectations, rushing into battle with shouts of glee as her hammer's head glowed faintly to his mana–sensitive eyes. Each blow either crippled or killed one of the Warriors, completely disregarding the buffs that they got from their captain. When two worked together to try to cripple her with their shouts, her head flared with that same glow from mana as she drew deep from her mana and used her Fortitude to protect her mind. Sure, due to her low mental attributes, that took probably over a third of her mana, but that didn't stop her. Instead of showing even the smallest amount of caution, she literally smashed the troll aside with a heavy flare of mana that seemed to nearly exhaust her. That didn't matter, because then she used Quick Recovery and raised her hammer to smash through the captain's shield in one more mana fueled blow. Wood splintered and exploded everywhere as the hammer's head didn't stop and smashed through the captain's chest in the same strike.
The Warrior let Muti go to take care of the fleeing raiders by herself, and Astrid settled onto her haunches, panting heavily. That had taken the entirety of her mana reserves as well as her Quick Recovery, but the damned recovery Skill would let her continue to get back into top shape faster too!
From where she sat, Astrid fumbled with her helmet straps, pulling it off and revealing her flushed, sweaty face. It glowed with excitement as she grinned and pointed at the devastated corpses that surrounded her.
"Did you see that! I wanted it to be a Spellblade instead of that? I thought being a magifighter Class was better! Duchess above, you all need to get in on this! Felix, Benedict, this is awesome!"