A Dungeon’s Survival

Flur

“Leave this one to me! Just handle the snake and lizard!” Lance called out to me as he ran up to the Trenti.

What happened after that, I wasn't entirely sure. I didn't have the time to check, and while I didn't like leaving a new static monster with unknown capabilities for the others to deal with, I also wasn't in any position to help with it. I was far too preoccupied with the other two enemies, and not dying was proving extremely difficult.

“Lawrence!” I shouted again, “I could really use that Purify right about now!”

With each passing second, the pain shooting through my body was getting worse. That venom was no joke, and I wasn't equipped to handle anything on that level. It felt like my body was actively falling apart on me, which probably wasn't too far from the truth. It was making dodging the snake's already swift strikes much harder than it had any right to be. Seriously, I come into contact with fire that didn't burn nearly as hot as that venom felt like it did in my veins.

Then, there was our third problem. We'd weakened it, surely, but the Horned Draco was nothing if not persistent and slippery. No matter what we did, it wouldn't give up. That was a problem since both sets of the snake's fangs kept snapping at me, and keeping them from clamping down on me again was already giving me more than enough trouble without that thing darting around incessantly. Between it and the involuntary shaking of my body, it was starting to feel like continuous evasion was an impossible task.

No matter how many strikes and dives I avoided, it didn't seem to matter. They just kept coming in a constant stream that forced me to remain on my toes. The worst part was that with each attack dodged, the margin by which I was staying out of range of them was decreasing. The longer it went on, the worse my situation was getting. That kept up until–

Blurring Step!

I was forced to activate the ability as I backstepped. The increased momentum was barely enough for me to get out of the way of the lizard's most recent dive-bomb toward my head. That alone wasn't enough, though. At the same time, the snake slithered by me, shooting dark flames up toward me as it passed. That forced me to turn my backstep into an unfortunately ungraceful roll, which did get me out of the blast zone, but it also put me into a disadvantageous position.

As soon as I could, I sprung back to a standing position, bringing my blades up toward the draco to force another retreat from it all the while. Though it was effective, that course of action turned out to be a mistake. I did manage to force it to back off through that maneuver, but while I was preoccupied dealing with it, the snake took advantage of my momentary distraction.

I didn't even see it coming. One second, all seemed fine in its direction. In the next, a dark blast of flames was bursting through the wall of shadowy fire that the snake had left behind.

My mistake was clear in that moment. I'd assumed the creature's grand plan was just to set as much of the battlefield as it could on fire, denying me the room I needed to move around freely, much like Lawrence had been doing with his vials of magical acid, but as that magical attack soared in my direction, I realized the thing was far more cunning than I'd been giving it credit for. The fire was more than just an obstacle for me to avoid. It was a divider between it and myself that obscured my view of the viper, and it had served its purpose.

With how late I'd noticed the attack coming, ducking it wasn't an option. All I could do was stand there and reluctantly accept that I was going to get hit by it one way or another. As it stood, I was out of options.

Then, suddenly, just before it impacted me, a burst of light erupted from the magical attack. I didn't even stop to question it, not even as the bright flash blinded me. I didn't have time to. Instead, I capitalized on the opening Lawrence had bought me. I dove into the space the flames had been a moment prior.

I was effectively blinded in that moment, my eyes incapable of providing me with any worthwhile information, so instead of sight, I relied on instinct alone. I knew the general direction the attack had come from, so that was where I swung my blades. My slashes lacked any of the precision I normally relied on, instead resembling something closer to a thrashing beast than an experienced Rogue. At the end of the day, however, blades were blades, and with the force I was putting behind mine, they were fully capable of cleaving their way through just about anything this Dungeon could throw at me.

That proved to be the case as I felt one cut through a chunk of snake with little to no resistance. As best as I could tell, it was a shallow cut, but it was long and would bleed the creature. That was only one of my blades, though. Another failed to slice through anything other than air, and the last one was met with unexpected resistance.

It wasn't the kind of resistance that a solid object provided. It was the kind of resistance that came from a precise execution of force, and it remained on the dagger, shaky but constant. I'd seen something similar from this creature before, so it wasn't hard for me to guess that it had bitten down on my blade to halt its momentum. That knowledge helped me to remain calm, but it didn't help with much else. The simple fact that it could overpower me enough to halt my attack was concerning.

Just how high are this thing's stats? I couldn't help but to question.

With only a moment to figure out my next course of action, I heavily considered releasing my blade and backing off. The blasts from behind filled me with enough confidence that Autumn was holding the Horned Draco at bay, however. With that knowledge, I felt comfortable pushing my advantage. That was yet another mistake. Before I could do anything else, the snake took a page out of the Plated Gators' book and rolled.

“Ah!” I recoiled in pain as my weapon was yanked from my hand and my wrist was forced into a position it was never intended to be in.

As soon as that happened, I retreated. That exchange had brought me down to only two functional arms, which was a horrible situation to be in. At the very least, however, my vision was starting to return to me, so there was that.

Shapes began to slowly distinguish themselves once more as I backed up. It wasn't much at first. Still, with that improvement, I could make out a bit of motion. Something small was flying in my direction, and it was moving fast. Assuming it was the Horned Draco, I swung my two remaining blades at it to force another retreat from the lizard, but the shape didn't move to dodge. As it turned out, it was not the draco.

“Argh!” I yelped again as I missed my target, my impaired vision too unreliable to deflect the projectile.

Fortunately, it wasn't the Horned Draco. Unfortunately, it still hurt. It didn't take me long to recognize the form of my own blade now protruding from my shoulder. I wasn't sure how it had managed to do it, but it seemed that the snake had somehow thrown the weapon it had ripped from my grasp back at me with enough force for it to slip cleanly into my flesh. Luckily, compared to the venom ravaging my body, I could hardly feel the pain from the metal. In some ways, that was nice, but it also raised a much more serious concern, one that I was glad to see addressed only a moment later.

“Purify!” words rang out from directly behind me as I felt Lawrence's staff jab into my back.

Instantly, the pain from the venom dulled, and my body felt significantly cooler. The consistent pain, however, didn't fully abate, and cooler was still burning up.

“Again!”

“What?”

“Use it again!”

“You shouldn't need it, though.”

“Well, I do! Quit wasting time and use it again!”

“Um, okay then. Purify!”

I shook my head as my vision cleared the rest of the way and looked around. What my eyes told me painted a grim picture. All hope was not lost, however. Victory was anything but assured, but even so, if we fought with all that we had, I was certain that we could still make it out of this alive and, more than that, victorious. That was enough, but given the scene before me, it wasn't going to be easy.

Directly in front of me, the snake was a bloodied mess. It was keeping its distance and heavily wounded, but there was still fight in its eyes. Off to the side, the draco was circling us from far enough away that it had plenty of time to react to anything that we tried. It was taking great care to stay clear of the resulting blasts every time Autumn fired an arrow, but all that was doing was buying us time, and it wouldn't be able to continue to do that for much longer. A single look at her quiver was enough to see that she was dangerously running low on ammunition.

Then, there was the situation on the other side of the room. There, Dan and Lance were still fighting the Trenti, and that battle didn't seem to be as one-sided in their favor as I'd hoped it'd be. Were it a normal Trenti, the two of them should have been more than enough to handle it, overkill even. It seemingly wasn't normal, though. I'd suspected as much as soon as I'd heard it speak and seen the weapon it was wielding, but further confirmation only solidified that fact in my mind.

There was something strange about it, and for a monster we'd never seen before, it seemed abundantly powerful. At first, I'd wondered if it was the same Trenti that'd fought the bandit alongside me back during his group's attack, if that one had been a static monster and endured through death because of it. I'd suspected as much as soon as I'd witnessed its odd behavior and appearance back then, but now, it seemed clear to me that was not the case.

The mere sight of that club this one wielded caused me to involuntarily clench my two working fists. The memories it brought back aside, it wasn't a weapon that would've suited the Trenti from back then. It had been evasive and relied on magic. This one, however, was large and brutish.

More than that, though, this one looked nothing like the other, only being larger than its more mundane counterparts and lacking the any of the distinctive characteristics that one had had, such as the large, pointy mushroom on its head. No, this was another beast entirely, and its physical prowess was to be respected. The fact that Lance was currently tumbling across the ground from the force of a a single attack to his side was more than enough to make that clear.

I shook my head at the sight. I wanted to help them deal with it, but the snake and lizard demanded my attention, especially as they both moved to strike once more. More than that, though, I trusted them.

“Come on, we've got work to do,” I said to Lawrence as I diverted my attention from the other fight.

My hands were tied, or at least they were metaphorically. In actuality, I was pretty sure at least two of my arms were broken, which was close enough as far as I was concerned, not that that distinction actually mattered.

“I should really be more worried about myself, shouldn't I?” I chuckled as I gave in to the rush of adrenaline once more.

They'd live through this, and they'd kill that thing. It was only a single Trenti, after all.