The next morning, we awoke to the sounds of the city outside the window, and then breakfast. It was a much lighter morning than usual, and without the grogginess that sometimes came to my companions from having to do the watch at night. I could get used to it myself, as my back felt great thanks to having slept on a real bed, and soon enough, we were armed and ready for the rest of the day.
Returning to the road where we'd left off, we startled a few bits of wildlife, mostly a small group of deer, before we set off down the way. The morning was spent hunting the various monsters along that road, which proved to grow stronger the farther we got from the Capital. It made sense, given adventurers would be more likely to gather around larger cities, while taking missions out here to kill the occasional stronger specimen.
We fought, amongst other things, a totem pole like monster. Wasn't sure if that was culturally insensitive or not, as I had no context for it other than thinking it, and the bone hydra, made me think of Castlevania of all things. It didn't shoot fireballs only, of course, as each head was a different element, and it could move, hopping powerfully around, and spinning the heads in our direction, spewing out everything from tongue of flame, to freezing winds, to bolts of lightning from its maws.
It still went down after a few minutes of trial and error, and Ray even noted it specifically had a bounty on its head, meaning I'd get money regardless of bringing bits of it back, so I let my bow feast on each head individually, unlocking some of the mid-tier elemental themed bows, some of which were even level locked…to level fifty so I had access to them right away, which was nice.
The next trial came from landsharks. Like swimming through the dirt and rock landsharks. At first I'd thought they were more like graboids or sandworms, but then we got one to breach, and no, it was a shark. A whole shiver of them, actually, around thirty, and they were tough to get to the surface, as they were attracted to sound, specifically to the beating of a heart transmitted through the dirt, according to my (Insight)'s power.
That took some doing, but finally I just decided to play bait, teleporting into the center of the largest group of them, and then teleporting out just as they came up beneath me, allowing the other to fry them into fishcakes. That strategy that would have eventually failed against graboids, as they were smart, but apparently landsharks were dumb as the rocks they swam through, and soon enough I was the happy owner of some new Bow forms, while we had to make a stop off at Sanctuary with our spoils.
Ben was…most interested to find our stuff, as he noted that landshark teeth, fins, and bones were some of the better stuff to make 'earth' element augmenting armor, and even offered a premium for them, adding them to my tally, as I found the morning slipped away into afternoon after giving out a few more buffs to the workers, getting some nice conversation with them that I…well honestly I wouldn't remember, but it was nice to be included in their little group for a bit.
We had lunch with them, before returning to the road, and making it to our last side attraction on the way to our main stop, another dungeon like the one with the reaper from the first few days. This one, however, Ray was far less confident about, as the reaper had been on her list for a long time, and she'd known both how it fought, and what it was weak too, allowing her to plan her own one hit kill strategy on it.
This time? She had some info on it, but was stymied by a simple lack of tries at it, as this particular enemy was unique amongst most others. Rather than being a Wave monster that had grown strong, this one was made by the people of this world. A golem, constructed by some idiot to defend his home, which had worked, up until the fool had died, and the thing had started smashing everything around it.
Fast and Strong were able to give some more specific details of it. The creature was called a 'Shatter Golem' and was made of a special type of hardened clay. It would, on being smashed or broken, have pieces fall off its body, and then those shards would reform into smaller copies, with the same stats, as the larger form. Infinitely or so they'd been told when they were younger, as even being blasted into powder had failed to prevent it.
Worse, the thing could recombine into itself at any point, and its HP was healed by this, essentially turning any small version of it into both a powerful ally, and a full heal in one. Luckily, it didn't get stronger from the recombining, but fighting something that was basically always at full health was simply beyond anyone that had faced it, especially since it was smart enough to start smashing itself when it got low on HP. Ray admitted she didn't see a way for us to beat it either.
I asked about water attacks, and Shadow was, in his own way, able to say those 'kind of' worked, but not really. It slowed the process down, but the thing could suck the moisture into itself too easily, drying out the outer edges. Worse, it could then aim the dried out parts at the attacker, allowing it to shatter smaller bits off itself, tiny enough to not be seen, before they recombined with the main body and brought it back.
That was a problem…but one I could see a few ways around. First I confirmed that Shadow could generate water, and a lot of it, something he demonstrated with a handsign. It was a jet of the stuff, and looking at his MP, it was enough to keep it going for a while. He did wonder where I was going with this as I brought us into the upper chamber of the dungeon, above the one where the golem was tromping around, shaking the walls.
Soon, I had him position himself just above the exit of the lower level, which the golem came up to to stare at us, but then went back down, unable to move through the runes holding it below. Then, with a few movements, I positioned Lucia and then Strong beside the hole, and had them both start using fire magic, making their flames hot enough to instantly vaporize the water coming off Shadow, before having him fire it into the hole.
For the next half hour, I kept the three up and running with (Mana Boost)s allowing them to stream the superheated steam into the area below us, slowly filling it up like a sauna. Over that half hour, the pounding of the golem turned into nothing but slaps, and then finally a few sluggish sounding slurps, which is where I drew them back, and waited for a few minutes, before diving down into the place, to check it out.
As expected, the golem, which before had been a five meter tall behemoth, was now little more than a mound of formless gunk that moved and rolled on the floor. It turned a melted head like protrusion to me, and then gave a half hearted noise that was probably a roar. It did little, and I called down everyone else into the sauna, and then we began to chip away at the mass' HP bar bit by careful bit.
The thing was smart, for a lump, and as it reached half health, just like one would expect, it tried to slam its hand into itself, but the goop of it was not so brittle at the hardened self it had been, meaning the arm just sort of 'folded' into the rest of it. When the other arm tried the same thing, it suddenly looked like a Silent Hill monster of some kind, and was flopping about literally trying to kick itself before falling into a mound of quivering wet clay on the floor after that failed.
It took time, the total battle was almost an hour for the setup and the fight itself, but compared to other long fights, this one was easy. The thing was slowed by the steam in the air, and while it wasn't pleasant to fight in it, leaving us all panting and sweaty, we were focused on winning, and when it finally collapsed to the ground, a jiggling pile of muck, one final blow causing it to surge upward for a moment, and then fall still on the ground.
The moment it was done, we rushed to the staircase, and then outside, collapsing on the ground, and asking for water from the guard, who, fortunately, had a few canteens of stuff nearby. It wasn't ice cold, but it certainly felt good going down, as the guard, looking at us, then at the now inactive dungeon, boggled, and seemed to stare at us in awe as the disheveled party slowly recovered.
It took us almost half an hour to finally heal from the exhausted status effect, and for Shadow it was only cured by (Cleansing Arrow), but still, it was enough that we were finally able to adventure back into the dungeon. Shadow and Lucia both used their spells, her ice and him wind, to begin chilling the inside of the dungeon. It was still some time before we could enter, of course, with the sun already dipping below the horizon as we did so.
Within, we found the pile of goop, hardening quickly, that had been the golem. It was lifeless, and my (Insight) skill told me it was dead for good this time, even giving me a rather grizzly stat on how many people it had killed in its life. It also suggested that I could use some of the clay to unlock a new Bow form, and so I did that, actually getting three, one for general constructs, one for golems in particular, and one for rebellious creations that gave a bonus to the stats of my followers who had rebelled against their makers.
That last was…disturbing in its implications, and again noted 'follower' not 'party member' as the beneficiaries of its effect. Still wasn't completely sure what the conditions were for that, given Ben apparently got the boost from my (Chain Breaker Bow), but I chose not to question as we gathered up the rest of the clay, and proceeded outside, offering the beleaguered guard a ride back to a hidden Guild town, if he wanted.
In reality, I was testing to see how far my fast travel could go, as it seemed like it could target anyone I considered 'in my group', not just party, and so the eight of us soon appeared in Sanctuary, where the Adventurers Hall was a skeleton, the foundations and support beams laid, but waiting to get some flesh on its bones, as the people around it were cutting boards and chipping at stones.
Ben, who was standing by the edge of the work, saw us, and waved off some of the other workers, before proceeding to run up to where we were standing, pulling out that appraisal monocle from his pocket the moment he saw the bags at our side. He was interested, and even recognized and greeted the guard by name, who was still somewhat awed by the sight of the city around him, being built in a place he'd only heard of before.
Ben was quite put out with what we had, commenting on how we'd now probably earned more in the last few days with our hunts and dungeon runs than what the Guild had or would spend setting up the town. It was like I was trying to bankrupt them, he said, somewhat seriously, somewhat good naturedly. After all, while it was true the Guild needed the money, given the Waves and everything, the gear and materials were more useful at the moment.
After sorting through the clay, and determining it retained some of the magic that had animated the golem, he led us back to the tent, where we rested and even refused a potion that, according to my senses, would restore my SP. It wasn't necessary after all. We were in no real rush, given there were still some weeks before the next Wave, and our destination was hopefully not going anywhere.
So we helped out a bit, Strong, Fast, Shadow, and Souka with the construction work, Lucia with some of her magic to level or clear ground for later, and even Ray with some administrative tasks that Ben had been struggling to keep up with. Who knew starting a new town required so much paperwork? That left me to simply rest, recover, and brood a bit as I watched them all go about their tasks.
It was not the best feeling in the world, to basically find I was probably amongst the weakest, and least skilled people here. Construction work, no matter what some idiots might say, was very much a thing you needed to know what you were doing, especially the sort that involved building a place from scratch, and while an extra pair of hands could help, if they weren't strong hands, they would only hinder.
Not to say I couldn't support, of course, once I had enough SP to jump when we were ready to go, I began to spend the extra I was gaining boosting some of the workers, making them stronger, faster, and otherwise better. I helped the mages with (Mana Boost) to get their spells chugging along that much better. Heck, near the end I even started helping the cooks pass out food and drinks to the various crews, earning me a fair few thank yous.
When the work had mostly been done to the point where they could leave it to the rest, we jumped back to the dungeon, and then proceeded out once more, finally turning completely from the road into what was more of a path. It had all the signs of having been fairly well trodden recently, after being overgrown before that point, a fact that disturbed the brothers as we kept going down it, until the night fell, and we retreated back to the capital.
We would arrive at our destination by midmorning, so I had everyone eat and drink their fill, and had the innkeeper, with a three silver tip, prepare as much as he could in terms of supplies, even rushing out to the market to buy dried fruits and meats, which I instructed to be loaded into packs for Strong, Fast, and Souka to carry, as they had the most capacity for that sort of thing. From there, we headed off to bed, to await the rising of the sun, and the end of our journey north.
(A/N: Title is a Castlevania reference, for anyone curious)