Soul of the Warrior

Chapter 236: Water Maze

Chapter 236: Water Maze

Once more, the group descended to a new floor. There was no difference in the lighting as before, but the oppressive feeling Reivyn sensed from the darkness beyond his senses grew more oppressive. The tunnel leading to the third floor led straight into more tunnels.

The true start of the third floor was an intersection with multiple openings leading every which way but up. Reivyn could see more, smaller intersections further down, though, that did have multiple avenues leading upward.

I have a phenomenal advantage on this floor with my Divine Sense, but it’s not nearly as beneficial as one might initially think, Reivyn thought to himself as he surveyed the various options. I actually can’t see far enough into the maze to immediately make the correct decision, and as far as I know, there’s more than one exit leading to the fourth floor.

No, the real advantage I have on this floor is my insistence to Level up Map Making. My mental map provides an accurate enough representation that it would be impossible to get lost. My Divine Sense just helps me fill out the mental map without having to travel down all of the tunnels. We’ll just have to travel a certain distance in order to find the main path leading to the exit.

Too bad for the others we’re not doing that, though, Reivyn chuckled to himself.

They all obviously knew about the third floor from the information packet. They all also knew about Reivyn’s inherent advantage when it came to complicated mazes. They had a discussion about the third floor before starting their delve, and considering they were here for the experience of the Dungeon and not to push for the Hard Mode or a fast time, they all agreed to have Reivyn take a back seat on their first delve on the third floor.

Don’t want to mess up all the fun. The Dungeon never recreates the same maze twice, or at least there’s enough variation between them that it appears that way, so there’s no point in memorizing a path.

There was a time limit, though. If they didn’t find their way to the fourth floor within two hours, Reivyn would take charge and lead them there the straightest way possible.

As far as Reivyn knew, he was the only person with a Map Making Skill nearly as high as his own. He didn’t even know if any of the others had even unlocked the Skill. He had certainly never seen any of them making any or doodling. That wasn’t his problem, though. Maybe this floor would be a wake up call to the others that they might need to expand their repertoire a bit more.

Reivyn nodded to Teilon and the other man smiled as he took the lead. Teilon didn’t hesitate and immediately shifted them to the left. The tunnel Teilon chose to explore wasn’t one of the ones that immediately went down. Reivyn’s mental map filled out in his mind as he observed the surroundings as they moved through the tunnel.

Teilon had been the obvious next best choice for leading everyone through the labyrinth. With his ability to phase through walls, he could check every now and then their progress more accurately than the rest of the Party members.

Kefira might be able to do something with her Space Magic, but she would need time to hone such a Spell. Making maps wasn’t something that had occurred to her as an application of her Affinity. If she could break into that aspect of it, though, Reivyn could see infinite use in the real world where she could map vast amounts of land quick and easy without having to actually go there.

It might be a good idea to come down here while we wait for it to reset with the express purpose of just letting her do such a thing. I’ll talk to her about it when we’re topside.

This was something they probably could have thought about before starting their delve, but not every idea was always obvious. Sometimes people were too close to the problem and they didn’t see it until it was right on top of them. Reivyn just shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t an emergency situation they had to handle on the fly, so they would just take it as it came.

Reivyn noticed a shadow darting along a tunnel parallel to their path. He could see in his perception that the two tunnels would eventually bend toward each other and connect at an intersection in the distance. The shadow was the first humanoid monster Reivyn saw in the Dungeon.

The third and fourth floors of the Dungeon moved away from oceanic monsters to sentient beings. Reivyn didn’t know if there was a sapient version of them somewhere out in the ocean, but he assumed there was at least somewhere. That seemed to be the case with many higher-Tier humanoid monsters he’d encountered. If it was true, though, they would most likely be cousins to these creatures.

The humanoids on the third floor were known as Sahuagin. They mostly armed themselves with long-reach weapons like harpoons and tridents, but that wasn’t always the case. It was rare to see them wielding a bladed weapon like a sword or dagger, but it wasn’t unheard of.

They were typically the same average size as people, but they looked similar to the lizard folks Reivyn had previously encountered. The major difference, though, was the webbing on their hands and feet. They were still dexterous enough to handle weapons easily enough, but they could also swim quite powerfully due to their webbing.

The single shadow that Reivyn spotted swimming parallel to them was armed with a traditional three-pronged harpoon. It looked dull and rusty, but it was a weapon in a Tier 4 Dungeon, so there was very little chance it would break apart upon use.

Reivyn didn’t alert the others to the presence of the monster. They had also agreed that he wouldn’t warn anyone of an ambush ahead of time unless he detected something that would potentially very dangerous. They based their assessment on what constituted very dangerous based on what Refix and Vyria would be able to easily pick up and handle on short notice.

That had eventually come out to fifteen enemies.

If Reivyn spotted ambushers, he would keep silent unless he spotted fifteen or more. He would obviously be part of defending against the ambushers, he wasn’t completely out of the equation, but he wasn’t used in gauging the difficulty of an encounter because it was literally impossible to surprise him.

They had all pored through the information packet multiple times. It was possible to run into multiple groups of Sahaguins converging on one intersection at a time on the third floor. It was unlikely to happen, but not impossible.

Most of the Sahuagin groups were small, only consisting of one to three. At least at the top of the maze. As a Party ventured deeper into the tunnels, the groups would grow larger in size until they capped out at around eight.

That was one of the main methods for ascertaining whether a Party was headed in the right direction or not. If they were making progress toward the exit, the enemy encounters would increase in scale. If they backtracked down a wrong path, the enemy resistance would grow lighter.

Reivyn tracked the shadow as it kept pace with the group. He didn’t know what the creature thought it could accomplish on its own, but it was a Dungeon monster without much intelligence. They were all aggressive and lacked critical thinking due to their nature of simply being a shadow of a real thing.

The Sahuagin, based on keeping pace with the group, obviously had some way to track the Party. That wasn’t something that was in the information packet. Reivyn didn’t know if it was because others were never able to see them outside of encountering them in an ambush, or if it was just left off as a test for the Parties.

Reivyn leaned toward the former. Other than not spelling out how to accomplish activating the Hard Mode, the information packet didn’t lack information on the enemies and what to expect. This was something he could potentially add to the information packet for the Adventurer’s Guild, though he didn’t know if anyone would be able to capitalize on the information or not.

That part wasn’t his consideration, though. Just providing the information was enough.

The tunnel eventually started to slowly shift direction, and before long, the Sahuagin popped up, trident first, in front of the group. Teilon activated his shifting Skill and flashed to the side as Kimberly took the split second opportunity of the monster losing its goal to dash forward and jab her spear into the amphibious humanoid’s throat.

The Sahuagin dropped its trident and clutched its throat as its legs flailed. Blood streamed from between its fingers as it struggled. Even though it was just a shadow of a real creature, something created by the Dungeon, there was no reason to let it suffer. Kimberly followed up the throat jab with another stab to the heart.

The two fatal wounds compounded with each other and did enough damage to end the creature’s life. Reivyn nodded his head at the quick thinking of the duo. It hadn’t gone to waste that they had spent years working together doing Dungeon delves under the supervision of his father. Reivyn just hoped that he could extrapolate that expertise to the mercenary company.

It wasn’t a huge deal if nothing spectacular came of having them take leadership roles among the mercenaries, but it was something that they were probably going to be participating in for the foreseeable future. Nobody had any idea how long or how many invasions there were going to be, but the scale they had seen so far indicated something that would take years, possibly decades. It wouldn’t make sense not to try and squeeze something out of his friends for the benefit of the other mercenaries.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

All of the other mercenaries themselves were mostly professional Adventurers and had lots of experience in Dungeons. The difference between them and Reivyn’s friends, though, was that they were mostly from those that were stuck in the lower rung of difficulty in Tier 4 Dungeons, and they hadn’t been trained by Refix.

Reivyn had seen the capabilities of all of the Adventurers-turned-mercenary before they were officially added to the roster. There had been very few that could rival the display he had seen from his childhood friends.

Teilon took the opportunity to halt their progress and phase through the walls. Reivyn watched him through his Divine Sense. He didn’t get the same type of interference in his perception of his friend’s movements through solid matter as he did through the water. It was easy to track him.

In order for Teilon to not get disoriented, he only phased in two directions at a time. He went through a wall and then immediately reversed to come back. It would be a disaster if he didn’t pay attention and ended up phasing through multiple walls and got disoriented. Reivyn would be able to easily find him, but there was no reason to waste all that time in having to look for him, so he just eliminated that possibility.

There wasn’t enough information for Teilon to make an accurate depiction of where they were just yet, and even Reivyn’s mental map was still inadequate. Teilon glanced at Reivyn when he was done to see if he could glean anything from his face. Reivyn just stared back at his friend with a small smile.

Teilon rolled his eyes and led the Party down the tunnel again the Sahuagin had come from. It led deeper into the maze, though it would only marginally increase Reivyn’s own mental map until they passed their initial location.

Reivyn wasn’t worried about it.

The Party continued moving through tunnels, meeting ambushes that mostly progressively got more difficult. The few times they encountered smaller groups of enemies, Teilon would make some sort of adjustment that only he understood, and the Party would once more be on track.

Every now and then, there was a small depression in the wall with some pressurized air bubbles they could take advantage of. Another difficulty of this floor was the possibility of choosing paths that incidentally didn’t have any air pockets. It was very possible for a Party to get into a fatal situation where they would succumb to drowning on this floor.

The third floor was a watershed for this Dungeon. Most of the younger delvers weren’t confident enough to make it to the end of the maze, so they would stop after killing the second floor boss. Once they were able to no longer struggle on the first two floors, it was customary to have one of the older delvers go with them to introduce them to the third floor maze.

Most of the people devling the Dungeon on the island were locals. They weren’t just going to feed them to the wolves, so to say. Even outside Adventurers knew to hire a guide before tackling the third floor.

Reivyn’s Party was an anomaly.

He must have either a Skill for navigating Dungeons, or he’s just naturally inclined to it, Reivyn thought. I don’t think I could have done any better, even with my advantages. I would still need to flesh out the map in my head, but Teilon seems to be able to instinctually find the right way to go.

The Sahuagin were at the upper end of low-Tier 4. Their weapons and armor posed no danger to the group, and they weren’t exactly masters of combat. Their maneuverability in the water as compared to humans who weren’t designed to live in the water was their main advantage, but Reivyn’s Party wasn’t too hindered from moving about in the water.

They didn’t employ any kind of group tactics to take advantage of their variety of weapons. If they had been able to more effectively set ambushes and use their weapons how they were designed, it would have been much more difficult. As it was, each battle was just a melee as the Sahuagin charged in just like Tier 1 goblins.

Even though Teilon was leading them at a quick speed through the labyrinth, it was just a really big maze. It took about ninety minutes, half an hour less than the agreed upon two hour limit, for Teilon to lead the group into a much larger room that signaled the end of the floor.

Reivyn could see multiple tunnels leading back up into the maze, but it looked like they were on a brand new floor. They had a solid ceiling above their heads and a large open area below them. It was an illusion, though. They were still on the third floor.

The boss of the floor waited below.

Now that they were out of the maze, Teilon flashed everyone a cheeky grin before bowing and dramatically offering the leadership back to Reivyn. Reivyn just patted his friend on the shoulder with a smile of his own before floating out in the lead position.

They still needed to locate their horizontal position on the floor. There were many different ways to reach the boss room, apparently, and they couldn’t just expect the boss to be right there. There were no longer any more monster groups other than the boss below the maze, though, and because of the nature of the floor, the monsters that weren’t killed in the maze didn’t flock to the boss.

It only took another couple of minutes to find the final encounter of the floor. There was no mistaking it. For one, there were no other monster groups remaining on the floor. For two, the boss was a giant Sahuagin. He was twice as large as any of the other creatures.

There was a small army of mundane Sahuagin arrayed before the boss. They reminded Reivyn of the Imperial Guard.

There were twenty of them, and their gear was much less rusty than the ambushers in the maze. They were also uniform in their weaponry and armor. They had full kits of armor, including helmets, and they all had tridents.

Contrary to expectation, the Sahuagin boss didn’t have a giant trident. He was armored just like the other monsters, but he had two discs loosely hovering around each of his hands.

Reivyn frowned as he saw the weapons.

Two discs? I’m not sure I’ve ever considered a weapon like that before. Maybe I can experiment in the future depending on how those things work.

Reivyn could sense Mana tethering the weapons to the giant Sahuagin’s hands. If he had to guess, he would bet that they were ranged weapons that the Sahuagin could recall back to himself like a guided boomerang.

Reivyn glanced at his Party members and nodded his head in the direction of the small Sahuagin army. Only Reivyn had spotted them so far. The others were still relegated to the distance imposed by the System’s ambient lighting.

The others nodded their heads back as they hefted their weapons.

Reivyn dove straight at the lined up Sahuagins. He accelerated to pick up speed and close the distance as quickly as possible. He didn’t want the enemies to have enough time to organize themselves. This was a boss fight, so they could expect some level of coordination between the monsters dictated by the System.

Reivyn used his Traveler Affinity and crashed into the midst of the Sahuagins before they had the chance to react to their approach. Refix was right behind him and tore into the group a short distance away. The two pierced through the group, but they didn’t immediately head to the boss Sahuagin.

They gained the attention of the little ones, engaged them for a brief moment, and then swam away in two different directions. They pulled the cohesive Sahuagin apart at the middle, separating them into two different groups. Kefira, Serilla, and Teilon waited just out of range near Reivyn, and Vyria, Xudrid, and Kimberly waited near Refix.

Reivyn’s Danger Sense screamed at him, and he banked hard to the right without hesitation. It moved faster than he was able to perceive it perfectly with his Divine Sense, but the lingering Mana attached to the force that blew past him, pushing him off course with the force of the water displaced by the fast moving object, informed Reivyn that it had been one of the discs.

Reivyn could see with his Divine Sense that the boss Sahuagin had targets both him and his father at the same time. Refix had easily avoided the attack. He was incredibly over-Leveled for this Dungeon. He could have probably taken the whole boss encounter on by himself and come out unscathed.

That would have defeated the purpose, though.

Reivyn kept his focus as he drew closer to the waiting Party members. He didn’t want to get too close to them, though, in case the boss launched another attack and the disc accidentally tore through his friends.

The others had noticed the attack and what Reivyn was doing, so they approached from an angle. Kefira stayed back and started pelting the lesser Sahuagin with her Spells as Serilla and Teilon dashed in. Teilon activated his ability to quickly pass through them and engage them in a pincer attack as Serilla tanked them from the front. Reivyn launched a couple of attacks at the flank before peeling off.

He and his father brought the lesser creatures away from the boss, and now it was time for them to converge on him again. They would take him together.

If they left the boss alone to his own devices without being engaged, he would begin to randomly target Party members. It wouldn’t have been too big of a deal if he was armed with a more conventional weapon, but the two ranged discs could pose a real problem for them, especially if he could attack consistently with the same speed and force as before.

The two discs screamed back to the boss as Reivyn dodged to the side to avoid it again. The boss was clearly able to manipulate it at a great distance, and he had tried to catch Reivyn in the back once more.

Reivyn dashed forward and arrived at the giant Sahuagin at almost the exact same time his father did as well. The two discs being manipulated by the Sahuagin rotated around either of his hands as the giant looked back and forth between the two smaller men.

Without any indication, the giant Sahuagin launched his weapons to engage both of them at the same time again. They didn’t scream at them at an unbelievable pace like before, though. The two discs seemed like separate entities entirely as they circled about the two men as they attacked from all directions.

The boss didn’t stand still, either. He was capable of manipulating the weapons in two different fronts at the same time and physically engage both of them at once, too.

A fierce fight, much tougher than Reivyn had expected, erupted between the three of them. Reivyn was momentarily reminded of the time they had fought the giant man in Piori. The Sahuagin’s armor wasn’t nearly as effective in stopping their attacks, but the sheer ferocity and ability of the boss reminded him of that large berserker.

Reivyn lost himself in the fight. It was the most exhilarating part of the Dungeon so far. He had to constantly be aware of the location of both discs. The Sahuagin was able to launch attacks at either of them with either disc at any time. It also slashed with the claws on its hands, kicked, and bit at both of them.

Reivyn and Refix were small whirlpools of destruction, though, and they whittled down the boss over time. Their weapons found purchase in gaps in the armor and cleaved through the metal in some situations. The boss gradually slowed down in its physical movements, though the discs never slowed.

Eventually, the boss couldn’t keep up with the damage inflicted on it. A threshold was reached, and the damage Reivyn and Refix caused exponentially increased, and the giant boss Sahuagin died. The two discs lost their connection to the giant and crashed to the seafloor.

Reivyn checked over himself and found that he was surprisingly cut in many different places. None of the wounds were serious, but he hadn’t suffered a single injury all the way until this fight in the entire Dungeon.

He shared a look with his father and the two smiled at each other. Unsurprisingly, Refix didn’t have any injuries on his body. Reivyn turned and found the rest of the Party members floating nearby. Reivyn indicated to the seafloor with his head, and the Party headed down.

The exit to the next floor was nearby where the boss Sahuagin had been hovering in the water, and the group made their way to the final rest area before exploring the last floor of the Dungeon.