Bonded Summoner

When Jake’s party arrived on the next floor, he nearly laughed out loud. They were once again in a frozen environment, and Jake was nearly certain one of two things was true: either the dungeon master was a complete troll, making an annoying challenge for them if they didn’t use Hestia’s or Fhesiah’s flames, or Jake was right and the dungeon master was trying to bait Jake into using Hestia’s fire, and getting him into a false sense of security besides. Just why would they put such a trivial threat for a fire user, otherwise?

Floor 2: Ice Caverns. Kill Boss - Ice Elemental

Jake was even more sure of it as they killed the minor ice elementals throughout the winding caves, and they got to the final boss room. It felt like the enemies leading up to the boss room were even weaker than the previous floor, and they spent their entire budget on the giant ice elemental boss encounter itself, one that would just be begging for the demoness to hit with a giant fireball and destroy it instantly. It was standing at the far end of an enormous cavern, just waiting for them to enter the large room.

The giant Ice Elemental looked like a bunch of giant rocks of different sizes and shapes made of ice stacked up on top of each other to make a giant ice man, with both arms and legs, but no head. The creature was quite large, at five meters tall. As Jake used [Arcane Eye], he found this encounter would be like their Ant Queen encounter, where minor ice elementals they had been destroying this whole time would come through smaller alcoves and tunnels once they engaged the boss.

Jake guessed that the room would get quite cold even if they killed the creatures rapidly, as when they faced small numbers of them, it had already gotten near the point of needing to heal frostbite with no actual attacks landing on them. Jake signaled his plan for taking on this boss over their bond: Ophelia and he would take on the boss, while Fhesiah took on the additional enemies.

They entered the room, and Jake and Ophelia began casting runic fire spears at the boss. The moment they started casting, the boss did too: a large magical ice barrier surrounded them, that looked like four giant kite shields that spun rapidly around them through the air.

Jake and Ophelia’s runic spears of fire slammed into one shield, and the shield crumbled. The Ice Elemental returned fire by casting four ice shards at Jake’s party, but they dodged them easily from their end of the cavern. Jake and Ophelia charged at the boss, and Jake cast Runic Empowerment on Fhesiah. Some smaller ice elementals started entering the room, and she went to work hard on clearing them out rapidly. They would normally shatter with just a single swipe of her claws, targeting their cores.

Jake and Ophelia shielded one another from ice shards that the giant elemental boss kept sending at them during their approach, and returned runic fire spear spells of their own. They took down two more shields just as they reached the feet of the boss, but one more shield respawned. Jake and Ophelia kept close to one another, so when the boss tried to punch Jake, it instead had two shields slammed into the fist at the same time.

The two of their melee coordination were now exceptional thanks to all of their practice together. They transmit their thoughts and feelings over the bond, and with two shields meeting a massive amount of force at precisely the same moment, they can deflect the blow. Just a few milliseconds difference and the transfer of momentum would be so large that each would be flung away like they got hit by a car, but they could stop the fist of the large creature by meeting it at exactly the same time. The runes on their shields lit up, as they fed mana into the inertial dampening rune.

They darted in with spears of fire, which slammed into the shields as they slammed their physical spears into the Ice Elemental’s left leg. Chunks of ice fell away, but they could see that frost and ice were gathering near the wound to heal the punctures and cracks created by their attacks. They would need to keep working through the Ice Elemental’s defenses to land a decisive blow. Fhesiah was still speeding around the cavern, clearing the much smaller ice elementals as they entered the room, keeping them from casting any smaller ice shard spells of their own.

Still, some smaller ice shard attacks nearly pelted Jake and Ophelia, to which they blocked with their physical shields. The temperature in the room kept dropping, and if not for their temperature regulation enchantments on their gambesons under their armor, they would already suffer from frostbite. They overcharged the enchantment using their mana, like they had done with the inertial dampening on their shields.

Jake cast Runic Empowerment on Ophelia as well, and her spear blurred as she mounted a large offensive on the boss. Stab after stab actually rocked the Ice Elemental back, and she added runic fire spears to the mix. The last shield floating around the boss shattered and Jake was able to land an empowered runic fire spear into the boss’s chest, exploding and sending shards of ice everywhere, melting much of their chest and exposing the boss’s core.

They wanted to capitalize on this, but the amount of magical energy surrounding the boss skyrocketed as they raised their arms into the air. Frost from all around the room swirled around the giant ice elemental’s fists, pulling them from all living smaller ice elementals in a miniature tornado, which were few thanks to Fhesiah’s frantic efforts. They slammed their arms down at Jake, but Jake and Ophelia were ready with their empowered inertia dampening, slamming both their shields with Runic Barriers layered on top of them.

Their runic barriers shattered slowing the fist and taking some of the frost damage, but the fist continued and they were pushed down to their knees by the sheer amount of force. The surrounding temperature dropped, and they started to freeze, and Jake’s shoulder dislocated from being pressed down at the odd angle. Jake screamed in pain, the crushing force and pain from the freezing of his lungs immense. Ophelia took some of the damage for him besides her own body freezing, but she still gritted her teeth and cast a minor enhancement of runic strength onto herself, allowing her to push up and shove the boss’s fists back, shattering the frozen energies around its fists.

As Jake worked to heal himself, he saw Ophelia speed up. Her attacks became vicious and full of energy, and her body glowed. This was her making use of [Advanced Melee Specialization], as well as her [Valkyrie’s Fervor] triggering from Jake taking significant damage. Increasing the melee skill to the next tier wasn’t just hitting a bit harder or faster, or simply being better with her weapon or melee skill choices. It was a qualitative difference that allowed the user to better utilize stamina, and if they had it, mana, into their attacks for empowered strikes.

Each of her spear thrusts rocked the giant ice elemental back and removed large swathes of ice from its body. The ice elemental’s massive strike seemed to heal themselves besides empowering their attack, but once again Ophelia was mixing runic spears of fire into her attacks, removing all the damage that was previously healed. Jake stood up, his shoulder now healed, and he sent another empowered runic spear of fire right at the chest, causing a similar outcome to before, exposing the ice elemental’s core.

Ophelia blurred towards the core using her [Charge] ability and crashed into it with her own spear. As she did, she released her own runic fire spear into the core, destroying it. The giant ice elemental crumbled, along with all the remaining ice elementals in the room.

Ophelia immediately rushed to check on Jake with a serious look on her face. “Jake, are you alright?”

Jake just smiled wryly at her. While if he was back on earth, any thoughts of a sports career would probably be ruined after just the last twenty-four hours, but here he was right as rain after just a few healing spells. “I’m good, thanks to you, but what about you? Did you forget you took damage, too?”

Looking over her, her chest was nearly covered in frost, and her breaths were still coming out like a fog. Her shield arm looked a little crooked, like her shoulder might have been fractured or dislocated as well. He immediately began casting his [Cure Wounds] spell, and she blushed. “When you got hurt, I…” She hesitated, and Jake sensed she wanted to use Hestia-related abilities, but she changed what she was going to say. “I decided to keep the enemy busy, giving you a chance to recover.”

Jake finished healing her, then smiled. “You were amazing, doing a lot more than that. You did the right thing. I know I can always count on you.” She gave Jake a shy smile, but before he could continue, they were interrupted, “You two are so cute. Did you want to have some time alone in a tent? I know you battle angels get a little excited from a good fight. This one qualified, didn’t it?”

Ophelia and Jake both blushed at her teasing, and she continued, “Aha! Two for one that time. I was just joking, of course. Wouldn’t want to give a certain someone a show, after all. We have a bit of cleanup to do, don’t we?”

Of course, she was right. There were tons of ice elemental cores to collect, and special ice substances they could gather using their [Looting] ability. They got to it, clearing out the room. Jake checked the dungeon completion notification.

Dungeon floor completed. Next floor in: 6 hours. Maximum Rest Time: 12 hours

Reward: Shield of Ice.

Jake took out the Shield of Ice. Jake found it interesting because it was cold in his hands. It would protect against ice attacks, and on some level, it could protect against fire attacks, as well. It was just that if fire was used, the shield could melt and be permanently destroyed. A strange item that he thought he could use, but Jake didn't want to rely on using an item that could be rendered destroyed much easier than other items.

Jake would store the reward; you would never know when something like this could come in handy, though he doubted as a party that excelled with fire, that ice would ever be something that they would fear, unless the threat completely overpowered them.

Normally, you would imagine that ice and fire counter one another, but things were different for Jake’s party: their flames were empowered by a goddess, or a dragon, in the demoness’ case. Most likely, there were some creatures of supernaturally special frost that could be a counter, but those types of creatures simply would not show up at level ten, Jake guessed. If the dungeon master pulled such a creature out, it would likely be a waste for them.

Jake used his [Arcane Eye] to make sure the dungeon was clear, and they set up bedrolls next to a fire they started; Jake taking kindling and other wood out of his storage bracelet. They would take a nap to be fresh for the next floor, as the demoness absorbed the kill energy from the large boss. With that, she also reached level 9, being not very far behind them now. They all lay there together, Jake using his summoned beast of a frost warg to keep watch in case they get surprised by an enemy.

When they had finished resting, there were still about six hours left of rest time, but they decided to move on. They had a light breakfast that they took out of their storage bracelets, cleaned up and stored everything they had taken out. They entered the portal, and the third floor was a little different.

Floor 3: Bloodstained Arena. Survive 3 Waves

Jake’s party was deposited into the center of a giant arena. He could see that the stands were filled with fantasy races, though ones that in most stories were categorically evil. Goblins, orcs, ogres, and Jake thought he identified some dark elves. He wondered what race the dungeon master might be, as while it was almost always an evil race like the aforementioned, there was a chance that it wasn’t.

There were 20-meter-high walls, and the ceiling of the area they were fighting inside was caged in to where the girls could not just fly out and leave. The arena was circular, and there were what appeared to be four entrances in the cardinal directions, with pillars at eight points around the outside that were large enough to completely hide behind. The audience was noisy, and just when Jake wondered when the event would start, all four gates opened, and one large creature came out of each one: some kind of sabretooth tiger. They were buzzing with electricity. The gates slammed shut as soon as they finished exiting.

Jake decided to start the fight with his staple this dungeon run: buffing Fhesiah with Runic Empowerment. Ophelia then started launching ice spears at one of the tigers, but they swiftly dodged the attack. Jake went for the one who had just dodged and was able to strike it with a large ice spear as it landed. He and Ophelia were able to bash their shields into another tiger each, while the demoness tried to rain blows against her opponent. She was getting shocked with each hit; the electricity feeding back into her. Jake cast a [Cure Wounds] on her, allowing her to continue her assault, and Ophelia cast ice spears at her sabretooth from point blank range in between blocking and thrusting her spear, causing wounds to build up on her target.

The third sabretooth that Jake had managed to strike with a spear of ice was now a part of their frantic melee with buzzing tigers, and Jake and Ophelia were having a difficult time of defending. One tiger latched onto Ophelia’s shield, pinning her in place as another flanked Jake and raked its buzzing claw across his back, both causing him to bleed and shocking him. Once again, Ophelia shouted in pain as Jake’s [Valkyrie’s Chosen] ability activated, and it both reduced the severity of the wound he took but shared the damage with her. She punished the tiger for latching onto her shield with a stab to its chest near the heart, but missed hitting anything vital.

It took Jake down to a knee in pain, but he kept his shield and spear in position, leading him to roll near Ophelia. Overall, while the attack hurt, the claw did not go deep or hit anything vital; he could continue fighting. His armor here made a significant difference in how much damage he took, as if not for his enchanted armor, being a valkyrie’s chosen, and his reinforcement buff, his spine might have been cut through instead of a surface-level wound.

Fhesiah downed her tiger first, and she activated her new cloak’s Alpha Howl ability. A red energy covered Jake and Ophelia, and the demoness blurred into motion, slamming into one of the tigers. This gave Ophelia and Jake much more breathing room, allowing Jake to get off a [Cure Wounds] spell, and Ophelia managed to cast a runic healing spell on Jake, topping him off. He sent his appreciation over their bond, but he could tell that she was worried that he took the blow in the first place.

After that point they were able to land some more ice spears and take down the tigers, taking no more wounds. Once the creatures were dead, they set about healing themselves and looting the corpses. They wanted to recuperate and Fhesiah to absorb the kill energy, but after about two minutes after the tigers died, the gates opened once again. This time, a veritable army exited, several creatures from each of the same creatures in the stands from each gate, except for one, where it seemed no creature that Jake could see exited: goblins, ogres, and orcs.

Jake was preparing to cast a cone-shaped spell to hit many of them from at least one direction when Jake felt alarm from the demoness and she shouted, “Jake! Behind you!” This was from the direction in which there were no enemies coming, so Jake acted quickly, guessing that these enemies had some form of invisibility. He used his [Force Push] ability, sending a cone of telekinetic force in that direction, and was shocked when a dark elf appeared only a meter away just as they were sent flying away from him.

Two others appeared as they stumbled backwards because of the spell, and the demoness took to task charging them and taking them down. Jake had kept his [Arcane Eye] summoned, and was happy to see that it allowed him to see that there was actually one more invisible figure. He simply hadn’t been focused on looking for hidden enemies behind him. He wasn’t sure if the dungeon master could see this creature he summoned or not, so he directed the demoness to “discover” the final one over his bond.

Jake used the time of the approaching army wisely and cast a spell he had prepared while practicing [Runic Magic]. His team was lacking in control, so he had come up with a few options for this. With only twelve runes, he was limited, but he still managed a small control spell that should help here. He lined up the runes and cast his spell in a circle all around his party: [Runic Magic: Field of Ice].

A thin layer of ice expanded in a circle out from his party, covering the ground and causing the approaching orcs, goblins, and ogres to slip and be unable to find their footing. It started at 5 meters from where his party was fighting and extended until it reached about 20 meters. This slowed their approach greatly, allowing his party to take on fewer enemies at a time.

Jake sent some [Mana Bolts] at the dark elves that had snuck on them, of which he could spam many of them to hit the visible dark elves' almost unprotected bodies. They were wearing some kind of cloth, probably something that enhanced their stealth capabilities, and the [Mana Bolts] ravaged their bodies, cutting and scraping their skin with blood in each direction. Jake returned to the charging group of goblins, leaving Fhesiah to her work against the dark elves, and released a [Runic Magic: Forked Lightning] in their direction. Ophelia mirrored this, but against the area of orcs that were slightly slower to arrive than the group of goblins.

Many of the goblins died, but some of them otherwise resisted the damage somehow. Jake wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed it before, perhaps the volume of everything else going on, but a goblin had been beating on some drum in the rear, and it provided some kind of protection or added some level of fervor to the goblins. Jake sent a spear of ice their way as he formed up with Ophelia, but the crazed goblin drummer smashed both of their sticks on the drum harshly to make a loud beat, and it rejected the spear and shattered it, as well as some of the field of ice in front of them. Still, there were few goblins left, so Jake and Ophelia fighting side by side worked on them.

Jake noticed none of the orcs had gotten taken down by Ophelia’s lightning, guessing that they were simply stronger and with more health. Jake settled into their formation fighting with the valkyrie, and he used his spear’s enchantment to add in deadly spears of ice in between thrusts or blocks with ease. Between the two of them, despite being outnumbered, they made it feel like they were in charge of the way the fight happened, especially thanks to the field of ice.

They would knock enemies around into one another, leave an opening for enemies to take advantage of, only for it to be protected by the other, and otherwise break into the enemy’s formation. Jake even sniped that annoying drummer with a spear of ice between two goblins. This allowed them to take the remaining goblins and orcs down quicker than they could gather around and flank the two of them, despite them being outnumbered. Eventually, Fhesiah finished her work against the four dark elves and some orcs and joined them, just as some large ogres arrived.

They had finally just smashed the ice to get through. There were four of them, and they were quite large at over three meters tall. They had large clubs with wicked spikes driven through the ends. Jake decided he would use one of his larger spells, one that he could only cast thanks to his spear, to take out one ogre immediately, and possibly damage one of the other ones.

He picked the two that were closest, and launched an absolutely massive spear of ice at them. This spear exudes frost so cold that even completely covered in clothes and warmed by the flames of Hestia actually felt like he himself might freeze. It was also about one quarter the size of the giant ogre, so when it smashed into the ogre, moving as fast as a crossbow bolt, it bowled them over and directly into the other ogre as they were both being covered in ice. Whether either of them died from the empowered spell, they would not be joining the fight until his group’s fight with the other two was well under way.

Jake was satisfied with the effect of his fifteen-rune spell, as he joined the demoness and valkyrie in their assault on the remaining two ogres. Their clubs were quite heavy and full of momentum, but it was easy to break their rhythm with Ophelia and Jake using their dampening shields to remove over half the bite from their attacks; this was besides proper shield work, angling and deflecting their blows to not hit them straight on.

They darted in and attacked their legs, and cast spears of ice until they could no longer stand. The valkyrie then used her wings to fly into the air and dive and drive a spear strike into one of their skulls, and Jake cast an empowered strength rune on himself to finish the other one similarly.

The other ogres were stuck together, and could not seem to get up, covered in frost. The ogre that the spear of ice pierced through was now dead, but the other one was just impotently trying to get up, various pieces of them frozen to the ground and to the other ogre. They put the other ogre down easily. They set about to recover, as the demoness had received some minor wounds from the dark elves and Jake and Ophelia had gotten several cuts and bruises by taking hits on their armor as well.

Jake used [Cure Wounds] and Ophelia, her runic healing, bringing everyone back up to full health. Jake felt his resources after casting all of those spells during the long fight were actually holding quite strong. He could cast a few spells before he would be forced to decide whether he would actually end up using a rod or not, but he wanted to save the rod for the fourth or fifth floor when it would be revealed. Jake didn’t think it was easy to counter the rods meaningfully, but knowing of their existence could make a dungeon master push for a battle of attrition rather than an individually more powerful or defensive enemy.

They were given five minutes to recover this time, and that brought Jake’s stores back up over seventy percent, as he was able to push his [Mana Siphon]. Fhesiah had absorbed a portion of her heavenly energy crystal, and the Ophelia had barely cast any spells, so she was almost as well off as Jake. The gate opened, and out came what looked like some kind of frost wyvern. It appeared the dungeon master was not done baiting Jake.

The wyvern dashed fast across the arena from where it entered on its legs and wings almost as front feet, and Jake cast Runic Empowerment once again: but on Ophelia, this time. She blurred into motion, activating her [Charge] ability, and met the wyvern’s swipe of its wing-claw with her shield. She looked tiny, with the wyvern being the size of a small bus, but it was the smaller battle angel that deflected the claw, and not the other way around. Jake cast the same spell on Fhesiah, and she danced around, slicing the wyvern’s wings and legs as she pleased.

The valkyrie and the wyvern traded blocks with blows, and the empowered strength of Ophelia left deep wounds on the wyvern. Just as Jake thought that this fight was going well, it reared back to likely use a breath attack. Ophelia sped away towards Jake, and the demoness positioned herself behind a pillar, but Jake was caught wide in the open, Ophelia not able to arrive in time to shield him. He cast a runic barrier in front of him as the breath attack hit it, the attack ongoing, and actually retrieved the Shield of Ice from the previous floor reward from his storage bracelet to get behind before it shattered. Ophelia was ready to cast a runic barrier to replace the shattering one, but stopped her efforts when she saw his plan to use the shield of ice.

The breath attack hit the Shield of Ice ineffectually, and the valkyrie and demoness immediately punished the wyvern for its attack. Their empowered strength created cuts deep into the creature, leaving it littered with deep wounds in just moments. Ophelia added some lightning attacks in between stabs, and Jake also hit it with an empowered lightning strike, frying it through its wounds. It succumbed to its wounds before the Runic Empowerment spells wore off, the third floor of the dungeon completed.

Floor 3 completed. 3 hours until the next floor is available. 6 hours maximum rest time.

Reward: Bloodstained Arena Badge

Rare Item Obtained

Bloodstained Arena Badge

Increases Strength and Constitution effectiveness slightly.

Once again, they had won. Jake was quite happy with their performance throughout the fight. While the valkyrie was quite worried about Jake with that last frost breath, Jake could have managed even without the shield. He just thought it was better than casting more runic barriers, as if the breath attack continued for a long time, eventually he would have been in a tight spot.

This was the second time that Fhesiah used her superior cultivator senses to help save the day, Jake not wanting to think about what would have happened had the dark elves managed to stab him in the back with their grisly looking daggers. Once they were removed from stealth or their invisibility, they did not seem more challenging than the orcs by very much, but their stealth strike could have nearly killed Jake. Jake would now put much more focus into using his [Arcane Eye], as it allowed him to see such creatures sneaking up on him.

He almost always had it out and used it, but while fighting, he would often let his focus on it slip. He would need to change that from now on. They settled in for looting and the demoness absorbing her kill energy. They were about to enter the end game.