Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (book recommendations txt) 📖

Chapter 29

For those who hadn’t progressed through the second room by the time they had their big Class Orb exchange on the 4th day they had been going to the dungeon, something as seemingly simple as having one of each Class in their group was nothing short of a miracle.  Having magical support in the form of a Mage, healing from a Healer, quick and precise up close attacks from their Scout, the ability to manipulate monsters and improve the other group members from the Support, and one who could take the brunt of the monsters’ abuse – the Fighter – was like nothing that Jeska could’ve predicted.

The 2nd room, which had been so difficult at first, was now relatively easy.  Jeska could attack from a distance with her Ice Shard Skill, which helped immensely.  It took a little practice to figure out how to use it, however.  What the others hadn’t mentioned, because it was apparently so innate and part of their Skills that they hadn’t bothered to tell her, was that she could bring up a set of transparent boxes at the bottom of her vision. In each box – there were 5 in total – she could place one of her Skills.

The first box was lightly colored in by a bluish color which indicated that it was her Ice Shard Skill, whereas another box was filled with a pale-yellow color – her Dazzle Skill.  Whenever one of them was ready to use, the box would flash (not distractingly, she was happy to find out), and all she would need to do was think about the Skill activating.  Jeska found that she needed to designate a target or an area where she wanted it to activate (in relation to her Dazzle Skill), or else it wouldn’t do anything.  Once she used one of her skills, a faint number would appear in the Skill box, counting down until she could use it again.

All of the Mages in the other groups had at least 1 ranged spell they could use: Some could send out balls of flames, some could form sharp rocks and shoot them at high speed like her Ice Shard, and others could form a fist of compressed air that could “punch” a distant target with more effect than she would’ve expected out of simple air.

As for the other spell they received with their Class (such as her Dazzle Skill), it seemed to be entirely random, though there were some repeats.  She knew that the Mage in Percy’s group could levitate herself or another person a foot or so off of the ground for a limited time; a different Mage could bring up a glowing shield around their or another’s body that could block a certain amount of damage; and another could touch a monster and poison them by activating their skill.

Regardless of what the other Mages received, Jeska used her own to great effect.  Walking into the 2nd room, she could Dazzle the Boars, blinding them for approximately 10 seconds, and then send out an Ice Shard that slammed right into the Spitting Serpent as it was trying to spit up some acid toward them.  Only once did she actually kill it in one hit when the Shard went into the Serpent’s open mouth; normally, though, she did enough damage to it to either cripple its ability to stand up far enough to launch some spit, or hurt its jaw in a way that made it impossible or difficult to attack.

The rest of the group weren’t idle, of course; Rosara would Captivate another one of the Serpents, Pascale would sneak up and take out the remaining Serpent with a sneak attack from behind, and Jeska’s brother would start attacking and getting the attention of the Boars before they could charge.  It was then left to Kelty to heal Arcen when he started to take damage from Boar tusks, and to join in with Jeska in smacking the Ice Bats out of the air.  They had found that, while annoying with their ability to slow them down from cold, the Bats were actually the least dangerous of the monsters in the room – as long as the others were handled appropriately.  By the time that her Ice Shard Skill was back up and ready to use, she was usually able to send it toward one of the boars, impaling it in the side and doing massive damage to it – if not killing it outright.

She tried to hit a Bat with one and actually succeeded in hitting the moving target – only to be disappointed when all it did was hurt it a little, and certainly not kill it. She supposed it made sense; ice against ice probably wasn’t the most effective of attacks.  I’m sure a ball of flames would’ve been much better.

In all, they only took minimal damage as a group in the 2nd room now – but it was the 3rd room that was still causing them problems.  Jeska couldn’t use her Ice Shard without being able to see a target, and the first time she tried to use her Dazzle Skill, it had blinded everything in the room, including her and her groupmates.  Before she was blinded, she was able to see what appeared to be a humanoid-looking lizard person, which she instantly knew was the culprit that had accounted for so many sudden deaths in the room in the past.

While they couldn’t capitalize on that information right then and there, the next few attempts at killing everything in the room eventually allowed them to concentrate on one monster at a time.  Jeska would pop her Dazzle Skill, everyone would try to find where one of the monsters was located as well as the holes in the ground