From their description, it didn’t sound like they had gotten any sort of reward. Karl suspected that the Awakened Rank group had gotten something, as they had at least finished the first two waves, though they nearly died on the third. That was nearly as good as his team had managed, and they got new skills.
It was impossible to tell how Prince Corbin had done, as he was in no shape for questions, but the rewards that Karl’s group had gotten seemed pretty impressive.
“What do we do now? We finished the challenge in the room, but do we dare to keep going?” Karl asked.
Prince Corbin laughed. “Finished? Oh no, that wasn’t what finished looks like, at least not from my side. I suspect that was intended to be a group battle.”
“Well, technically we lost as well, but it’s over now and we’re out. Three people was barely enough to get through, but I think that five at the same Rank would have been better.” Karl agreed.
“Even with the beasts?” Dana asked, leaning against Rae, who still hadn’t retreated to her space.
“At first, it was alright, but as the numbers increased, and then the power, it was rough, even with them. Maybe it keeps going until you lose?” Karl suggested.
Alice gave him a curious look. “Well, let’s hope that we don’t have to find out. There is a second door to this room, and if we’re going to explore the caverns, we will have to move along once we’re all healed and rested. If not, we will have to report it and give up any chance at the hidden loot, so they can send in matched teams to face this sort of trap.”
The Awakened group and Prince Corbin both sighed, suggesting that they had indeed gotten something out of their time.
Corbin got to his feet, signalling for the others to get up now that they were healed.
“Alright, we should get a move on. We need to search more than one room of the cavern complex per day if we’re ever going to get through it. Leave all the doors open after we pass through, and I will mark the walls so that we don’t get lost on the way back.
When it gets later in the day, we will return to the area near the cave mouth for safety.” He explained.
How safe that would be was questionable, as they had been chased in here by monsters to begin with, but after the challenge that they found in the first room they entered, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t have a harder time trying to navigate the complex than they had outside.
Corbin opened the next door, and Karl took up the back of the column with Rae. She was Commander Rank now, and while Thor and Hawk had both retreated to their spaces, Thor had kept the [Refreshing Lightning] active around her, which he had now spread to the rest of the group.
The mages had created a light to float above the group, giving them enough light to see by, and Corbin was moving one along in front of them, which Karl still thought was a terrible idea for the man on point, but only a dozen metres down the hallway, they found doors on both sides again, though without any light behind them.
The Royal Rank Spellblade motioned left, and Karl noticed that there was a large chunk of his blonde beard missing where his face had been freshly healed. The Cleric magic looked like it had prevented scarring, but it didn’t regrow the hair that had been removed by whatever had hit his face.
He breached the door with a gust of wind magic, and stormed inside, while Karl waited at the back of the pack to see what happened.
“Clear.” He called out, just loud enough for the group to hear him.
Alice breached the one on the right, also finding it empty. It was better than finding out that every room in this place was a trap, but everyone had been hoping for some sort of treasures to be left behind in these caverns.
[There’s something ahead. I can see the temperature change in the next room, it doesn’t match this hall.] Rae warned, catching on to clues that Karl would have missed.
He whispered his warning just loud enough for the group to hear. “The next room is a different temperature. It might be warmed by something inside.”
That put everyone on guard, and they doused the lights to the bare minimum, which revealed the fact that there was glowing plant life in the next room, providing faint illumination, but enough for everyone to see by.
It was dim to most of the group, except Karl and the Clerics, who had their own ways to enhance their eyesight. But it was enough to see by, and Corbin cast a spell to silence their footsteps.
He stopped just short of the entrance to the room, and whispered back to the group.
“I count thirty red goblins. I’ve never seen anything like them, but they’re strong.”
If the Royal Rank mage said that they were strong, then Karl would take his word for it. He obviously didn’t mean that they were just stronger than regular Goblins, which wasn’t a hard standard to meet.
“Keep the Awakened in the middle of the group, I will lead the way in.” Corbin instructed, and the group shifted their positions to protect the more vulnerable members. That had to mean that these were on the strong side of Ascended at the least, or the Awakened members wouldn’t have had to retreat to protected positions.
The ceiling was low in the room, low enough that the Golems were going to have to be shortened, and Karl couldn’t use Thor to fight. His horns would get caught on the roof, and he would barely be able to move.
Rae’s body shifted colours to have a bit of shimmering soft blue in it, looking like she was covered in the luminescent plant, and she summoned out her Golems.
They took on the same pattern, and the [Refreshing Lightning] spread over them as a soft blue glow, preparing them for battle.
“Now.” Prince Corbin ordered, and Karl surged forward with the group, moving to the right to cover the flank while the Golems went left.
As he passed her, Karl could see the furious look on Rose’s face, mad that she had to stand back from the battle against what looked like regular goblins in a new colour.
But when the first of Dana’s Golem blades hit one, and it only left a deep cut and didn’t eviscerate the creature, it made much more sense.
Thirty wasn’t many regular Goblins. Thirty Ascended Rank mutant Goblins were an actual concern for the group.
Not so much for Rae and her Golems, who had already begun a reign of terror, as she got to test out her combat skills as a Commander Rank beast and the new [Terrorize] Skill that Karl had activated for her.
Interestingly, when he cast it on her, the spell spread to her Golems as well. The spell must consider them to be part of the same whole, and forty percent extra damage for the three Commander Rank beasts, who were nearly invisible in the room, as they looked so much like their surroundings, was more than enough.
To distract the Goblins from the presence of Rae and her minions, Karl activated [Flaming Body], filling the room with faint red light that caught the attention of all the Goblins at the same time.
That proved immediately fatal for five of the beasts as his teammates took advantage of the lapse, and then Karl was throwing [Shred] into the deceptively small and weak-looking beasts. Two of them actually managed to parry it, while one took a deep cut across its face that left it blind in one eye.
Larry moved to Karl’s side of the fight, as Prince Corbin was holding the centre, but there wasn’t much immediate threat. The beasts had been stopped by Karl’s attack, and the three spiders were coming at their backs already.
The Commander Rank Spellblade pushed forward, throwing Lightning from his blade into the Goblins, so Karl charged with him, squeezing the Goblins into a pincer between them and the Spider Golems.
That let them move to encircle the survivors, and within minutes the Red Goblins were dead.
“Good work, everyone. Let’s see what they had on them.”
