Bonded Summoner

Part of Jake did just want to take to the sky, where he thought only the Alpha Warg would have any sort of ranged attack. Jake thought about how he wanted to handle this fight. At this point, he was not worried at all; it was just about how many cards he wanted to show the dungeon master so that they could not counter his party in future floors.

Fighting a large group of enemies like this, the enemy would really benefit from their ability to attack from all directions. Jake might be able to build a sort of physical barrier using earth runes, but due to him not being able to fully control the earth at that level yet, he might end up just getting enemies that could jump on him from above instead of closing off that avenue.

Jake looked over at Fhesiah and smiled. He thought he had an excellent tactic that would piss off the wargs and their alpha. The wargs would coordinate and attack from all directions, making the fight go how they planned it. Jake would turn that around on them, and give them a target that could do the same to them, and they could do nothing about it. If they bunched up to counter the demoness, he would cast a larger area of effect spell to eliminate many of them.

Jake cast Runic Empowerment onto Fhesiah. She would dash as fast as she wanted, and dart in and out of the sky, and otherwise slash any warg that was not defended, while Jake and Ophelia used their teamwork of shield and spear work to cut down the wargs that surrounded them.

Fhesiah took off with glee, immediately attacking the nearest warg. They tried to respond, but she easily slashed their throat and moved out of the way of their jaws, dancing through their moving formation. They moved to surround her, or slow her down, but she easily moved through their ranks, cutting through and slashing them where she pleased. Her use of [Winged Combat] allowed her to bait wargs into leaping into the air at where they thought she would be, only for her to change direction and turn their counter into an attack of her own.

Meanwhile, Jake and Ophelia moved in tandem to guard against attacking wargs. About twenty of them were surrounding them, making probing leaps and attacks, which Jake and Ophelia punished with powerful stabs of their spear towards their vitals.

It had been only thirty seconds, but six lay dead at their feet, and several had been wounded near them. Wargs reaching for a flank attack on an unprotected side of Jake’s would find Ophelia’s spear or shield slammed into them from odd angles, and attacks on Ophelia would meet the same of Jake’s. Jake was monitoring their alpha: he knew this creature would take advantage of their distraction, either with some kind of massive spell or a powerful charge-like ability. Creatures like those usually also had some kind of howl or battle-cry like ability that should strengthen or otherwise speed the creatures up, making them more deadly.

The demoness continued her grim work with savage glee, slaughtering the creatures like they were but chickens and her a fox. Her punches and kicks shattered skulls, and her slashes of throats left them dying in mere moments. After a minute, she had not slowed down at all, and dozens of the creatures had already laid dead. It was at that point that the formation of the creatures shifted.

The wargs on the opposite side of the alpha flooded towards it, some passing around or through where Jake and Ophelia were fighting, still surrounded. Fhesiah was a little worried, as she would only slightly thin the two dozen that were heading towards Jake and Ophelia before they arrived, but Jake waved her off. He wanted her to probe the Alpha and watch what that part of the formation was doing. He would take care of the large number of creatures with a spell.

He couldn’t send precisely what his plan was, but she got a gist of what he wanted through his intentions. Their bond at level 5 allowed for more than just emotions, and he could guide her in ways similar to how he guided the temporary creatures he could summon. With that, Jake got his runes ready, and when the two dozen, nearly three dozen with the ones that were already surrounding them on that side they were approaching from getting near, he released his spell: [Runic Magic: Forked Lightning].

This attack blasted out with a loud clap of thunder in a large cone, and the blue-tinted lightning devastated the creatures in front of him, where he released his spell. The shocked creature’s hides were scorched in various places, and Jake was satisfied with the results. Only three wargs were still even moving, and he and Ophelia moved to finish them.

The pack of wargs were now down to half the original number, and he could just see the Alpha Warg just seething from its position in the back of their formation. Fhesiah was still moving through their ranks, keeping to the outsides and out of range where she thought the Alpha Warg could assault, but she returned to Jake’s side with a use of [Call Summon]. The Runic Empowerment buff was about to wear off. They were about to enter the end-game of the warg’s assault.

Jake thought things should be relatively simple, Jake and Ophelia being able to mop up a majority of the rest of the wargs with more forked lightning. The Alpha Warg then howled loudly, to which the pack joined in. A red energy enveloped them, but then the demoness shouted and grabbed onto Jake “From below!” and took to the air with him. Ophelia had stumbled as the earth shook, but took off just as a giant creature burst from the ground. It bashed into her, knocking her away a dozen meters as it emerged, but Jake and Fhesiah had avoided the attack completely.

The wargs moved at a supernatural pace, including the Alpha towards the downed valkyrie, but Jake and Fhesiah reached her as she got to her feet. Fhesiah’s early warning had gotten her able to avoid the brunt of the attack, but she had some fractured bones. Jake cast [Cure Wounds] on her, the bones being repaired, and joined her in a shield-to-shield formation, one of them facing more towards the incoming wargs, and the other facing what appeared to be some kind of rock wurm. It was about the size of a large van, at least what was showing of it coming out of the ground. Jake felt Fhesiah would not be well equipped to take on this creature without using her flames, her claws not able to reach deep enough to strike at any parts that were vital.

Jake decided to let Ophelia keep the wurm busy, and Jake and Fhesiah would take on the wargs together. The wargs were arriving, and they were in a large pack of nearly fifty of the creatures. Jake cast his forked lightning again, and the wargs all howled in unison as the red energy absorbed much of the attack, but most of the energy surrounding all the wargs was consumed. Jake used the Runic Empowerment spell on Fhesiah again, and he took a defensive stance to punish the normal-speed wargs as they thinned their numbers together. The Alpha Warg would arrive soon, but he monitored it.

While Jake and Fhesiah were thinning the wargs, Ophelia was fighting the wurm. It reared and tried swiping at her, but her shield’s effect would only cause her to be pushed back a meter, allowing her to charge back in and stab the wurm a few times before blocking more attacks. Her corrosive spear wore away the rock armor where she was striking it in the gut, and each pierce reached deeper into the protected body. She tried a runic lightning attack and it had minimal effect on the armor.

When the Alpha Warg got close, it blurred into motion and smashed into Jake’s shield, and Jake grunted and heard Ophelia give an exclamation of pain, Jake’s [Valkyrie’s Chosen] ability sending some of the damage to her in his stead. This sent Jake flying, but he was able to angle his shield and himself in such a way that he was able to roll and get right back to his feet. He felt like his left shoulder, his shield arm, was dislocated or otherwise fractured, and he had difficulty raising his shield.

The Alpha moved to capitalize on the damage it had done, as well as several wargs, but Fhesiah slammed into its side, lifting its large body completely off the ground and sending it tumbling away. She then danced through the wargs slaughtering them, allowing Jake some breathing room to cast [Cure Wounds] several times on himself.

Popping his shoulder back in place, Jake was back up with his shield raised. Fhesiah was slaughtering wargs, having to slice them more than once to get through any of the reddish energy, but she was working their numbers down to a much more manageable level. The Alpha Warg stood up, and it now appeared to be angry. It used another ability that made it become larger and tinged with the same red energy that it had covered the wargs with, and it advanced on Jake and Fhesiah.

Ophelia had kept her offensive going on the worm, and now most of its armor around its gut was removed, and her spear thrusts were drawing a lot of greenish ichor with every attack. The worm spewed some corrosive substance of its own, but she easily evaded it with the use of her wings. Eventually, she used her lightning attack where she had been stabbing it in the gut, and it cooked the creature from the insides as it thrashed.

Jake prepared another lightning attack, but this one targeted a single creature. His reserves were getting low enough that he would get concerned soon, as he was getting close to below where he could safely activate one of his spell-rods if things became worse than predicted. Still, he felt he had plenty of leeway with this fight, as the demoness and the valkyrie were holding back, fighting at below half of their overall power by not using their fire.

On some level, Jake felt like hamstringing his own team and not using fire was probably a waste. Jake was a Champion of Hestia, and Ophelia a Valkyrie of Hestia. There’s just no way a dungeon master wouldn’t be able to know that fire was a big part of their toolkit.

But Jake was limiting his team for more reasons than just hiding the ability from the dungeon master. He was testing his team's limits and helping them get over their shortcomings, but only while it was safe. If anyone was genuinely in danger, they would use their full strength and meet the challenge head on. He was also setting a trap for the dungeon master.

The dungeon master might try to lure Jake into a false sense of security, that they were unaware of Jake’s party’s reliance on Hestia’s flames, laying their trap on the last floor for maximum effectiveness. This challenge will be easier for Jake and his party to overcome than 4 floors filled with enemies strong against fire, or something like this. This is Jake stealing the initiative away from the dungeon master, and whether or not it was worth the effort, Jake’s party would benefit unless he completely underestimated a threat and it became too late.

Jake unleashed the runic lightning attack, a single bolt that slammed into the Alpha Warg. The reddish energy was consumed and the creature went flying away once again. Fhesiah was there to meet it where it landed on the ground, slashing at its throat as it was downed, blood splattering as the creature struggled disoriented to get up, as Jake could tell she was not reaching deep with each slash. Eventually she wound up a much stronger slash and she had reached the desired effect, the creature losing its vitality and unable to get up.

Ophelia had finished off the wurm, and helped Jake mop up the remaining wargs. Shortly after, Jake received a notification.

Dungeon floor completed. Next floor in: 2 hours. Maximum Rest Time: 8 hours

Reward: Alpha Warg Cloak

With that, there should be a portal appearing in about 2 hours that could take them to the next floor, but they could wait for a maximum of 8 before it forced them to enter. The two hours would allow the dungeon master some time to prepare for the next challenge. They were restricted in what challenges they could make, being limited by the level and number of entrants and the [Law of Balance], but they could take advantage of anything they learned about Jake’s party: their strengths and weaknesses.

Jake and Ophelia had both reached level 9 from the dungeon, but they had not earned any new spells. The demoness settled in to absorb her kill energy, likely needing at least the two hours and then some to absorb it. Jake and Ophelia set out to loot everything, the large amount of creature corpses not far away. Once the looting was completed, Jake set out to prepare some lunch. They had various ready-made foods in their storage bracelets, but Jake brought most of what he needed to make some fresh food if time permitted, which it was, in this case.

Jake heated some pre-made soup in a large cooking kettle he took out of his storage space; he only needed to add water to the base he had made. The tundra was cold, even with their supernatural resilience to it. Jake and Ophelia waited for Fhesiah, and they joined them after about an hour of consuming the kill energy.

They talked about the battles, but avoided mentioning anything about their ability to use the flames of Hestia, or about how much reserves they had left when the battle ended. Jake could tell through the bond that both of the girls were well above half their reserves, and that was with Ophelia avoiding casting her more useful spells.

Jake took out their reward, the Alpha Warg Cloak. It was of a black fur that almost glistened blue in the sunlight. It had an activatable ability: Alpha Warg Howl. When activated once per day, it would use a similar ability to what they witnessed. Overall, a nice ability to have, as it was like a minor health buffer and speed boost for allies. Jake looked over to Fhesiah, thinking that she would be the best for this ability; her often being in the thick of the fighting, and it would give her options for protecting her allies, which Jake and Ophelia already both had. At the same time, could she wear a cloak with her wings? At the very least, he knew she didn’t need to flap them in order to fly.

The cloak used almost a game-like ability, not needing heavenly energy or mana to activate. Jake was happy for this, as it went along with Fhesiah’s sensibilities, especially since it enhanced her party. It would give her a way to protect Jake that she didn’t currently have.

They huddled together near the lit fire, holding each other with their equipment, and waited for the 2 hours to pass. Overall, they were back at nearly a hundred percent. They were not fully rested, but they would not chance forcing to wait the full time as the trial had a finite amount of time. What if one stage had them traveling for an entire week over an enormous distance? They didn’t know. The entire stage only took less than an hour, the fight lasting from beginning to end once they found their quarrel.

The portal opened, and they stepped through. Four floors to go.