Chapter 7
"Shouldn't we try to get another party, Roseanne?" The green-haired elf that I didn't talk with and was next to the curvaceous darker skinned elf who was leading the party asked obviously worried about how strong in particular the aberrant was because for all we knew it could be a level two monster, and could just rip us apart.
Well rip them apart anyway, I had potions of swiftness and even recall potions so I could flee if necessary.
"No... More people could have the dungeon respond by trying to drop a monster party on us." Roseanne muttered frowning at the room's entryway.
"Entryway is too big to funnel them as well." I threw in to shut down any such idea as the dungeon hallway was a solid like fifteen meters wide which meant the whole monster party within could rush down the hallway anyway.
For a moment Roseanne clearly thought about whether she wanted to change her survival by doing this mad monster cleansing and I could see from the way her shoulders untensed that she came to her decision.
"Mia, Nyana, we are retreating. We don't know how dangerous these aberrant and mutated are in a group." Roseanne said shamelessly as I was ready to go in and take advantage of how much faster the aberrant and mutated were and kill them with the archers as they would be the first rushing over to us.
"Good luck young man." The curvy elf said placing her dusky skin-toned hand across her exposed cleavage and bowing to me slightly. Then the three elves literally after posing and arguing for the damned room, just walked off for fucks sake.
"Well, dammit... Do I want to chance this now?" I muttered as I watched the three girls turn around another hallway and leave my sight.
Looking back towards the room and then my Wulfrim Drone I sighed as I took out my Squire Squirrel Staff and summoned Sir Fluffykins the First, as I knew my bro wouldn't abandon me like those girls did when the going's got rough.
But as I summoned the very expressive squirrel he whirled around as much as he could from his sitting position and when he locked eyes with me, he began laughing and pointing at me and I remembered how Seshat claimed the squirrel as her shop's security guard or something.
"Seshat is going to be pissed, isn't she?" I asked and he firmly nodded while making the motions that meant Rest in Peace.
"Well, Seshat can't kill me if I kill myself in the dungeon, can she?" I mused as I picked up the squirrel and put it on my wooden armor and as I mentioned killing myself, I earned a rather hard bonk on my helmet from my summon slapping the helmet as though telling me to get serious.
The reason I was chancing this honestly slightly suicidal test of courage was... Well, my Terrarian crafted items were for sure strong and could help me bridge the gap especially later on with the higher-level adventures. But I had nothing helping my growth like Bell had with his cheat skill.
Not only that but I wanted to be strong and known for being strong as I didn't want to spend months running around the world of Danmachi trying to get certain resources that I would need and likely be highly uncommon if not impossible to find here in Orario like certain weird flowers for potions, wood from the elvish lands, and countless other things I could literally commission other people to get for me in order to earn my favor and get one of my creations.
Hence why I was going to fucking cheat and use grenades to kill all these monsters.
"Grenades are literally craft-able with just some iron scraps and gunpowder, gunpowder being just charcoal, and sulfur mixed together." I mused as I held out a grenade in both hands that I had made in my off time. Calamity add-ons that allowed for the crafting of certain Vanilla items were proving more than ever their value as without it I wouldn't have been able to craft grenades at all as far as I was aware and especially important as Terraria NPCs just weren't a damned thing here at all so it's not like I could just go buy gunpowder and bullets in mass.
"Here," I said handing a bag filled with grenades to Sir Fluffykins the First. Just because Terraria never finished the thrower class didn't mean my homeboy insane squirrel couldn't just throw bombs and other crap at my foes from atop my shoulders. The only limitation on him as a sentry seemed to be that he physically couldn't walk around, not that I couldn't arm him with other munitions than his summoned acorns.
"Bwah Chick Snick!!!" The insane squirrel cheered shaking the bag over my head and making my butt pucker as it seemingly worshipped the bag filled with highly explosive ordnance
"Alright at least let me die by monsters..." I muttered as I took out my Copper short bow and finally entered the resting room of the monster party I saw the Kobolds and Goblins were already up and moving to investigate the cheering noises Sir Flufflykins the First made when I gave him the bag.
"Dammit!" I muttered as I began shooting arrows at the crowd of monsters that saw me as they came into view and began rushing toward the entranceway of the room.
Realizing I was certainly outnumbered I began a jogging back pace as I did my best to send arrows towards the red-skinned Goblin aberrant monster that truly outstripped its compatriots in speed.
The other mutated weren't really much of a concern but just as I began worrying, I saw Sir Flufflykins the First, opening action since the battle made its impact, as his insane aim even while bouncing along on my shoulders was still true.
With a loud thunking noise that rang out even through the sounds of the screams of monsters and of the laser fire coming from my Wulfrim Drone, I saw the round bottom end of the metal grenade nail the rushing goblin right in the eye making it stagger and trip in its all-out sprint towards me.
Seeing the grenade, approaching the goblin to begin with, I quickly covered my ears as grenades in Terraria had an interesting mechanic when they impacted living creatures. "Boom!" With a roar of sound and an explosion of flames, the grenade exploded filling all too small hallway with its explosive might and I winced at the phantom feeling of my armor rating emptying at the hit to block out the concussive force and protect me from harm.
But it was more than worth it, as the aberrant monster was just a shredded burnt corpse laying on the ground with its mutated brethren and the mutated kobolds that were behind it reeling at the grenades obviously blowing out their eardrums with how we were in an enclosed space.
Thus, the rest of monster cleanup was easy enough as I took away Sir Flufflykins the First's grenades as the floors were too damned small for him to be using these things, and for the rest of the monsters, I used my topaz staff to kill the reeling mutated and then got into close combat with the dozen or so utterly normal versions that although they scratched me a bit, I still was able to defeat them with my copper broad and short sword combo.
"Now let's see what I can do with you," I said as I took the aberrant monster stone from my wulfrim drone that was acting as my supporter, and honestly not too unexpectedly it merely counted for five mutated monster stones in my crafting menu's which although wasn't really all that great but in the end having more ways to get Mana Stars was the most important bit as making them was ultra-important for upgrading my own internal mana storage as well as making magical items.
Even with only having an anvil and workbench at home I could already create a great deal of magical tomes/weapons, but I wasn't sure which one I wanted to make. As trying to conquer the first floors of the dungeon with the Golden Shower was just asking for a humiliating epitaph from the gods for when I ranked up.
"Well let's head to the other monster party sites," I said giving Sir Flufflykins the First a fist bump to congratulate his amazing throw, and even as the squirrel chittered away in a smug manner, I felt his fuzzy and soft paws fist meet my own.
"Beep!" My Wulfrim drone went zooming around me so quickly I was getting dizzy not to mention with it doing the zoomies I couldn't move forward.
"Alright alright! You did well as well." I said laughing weakly as I patted the drone on its head as it stopped doing zoomies around me.
Was this why you could only have so many summons in Terraria? Because they all had character and would pout and throw a fit if they didn't get enough attention?
Then just as we had done before I would sneak up into the monster party rooms and then me and Sir Flufflykins the First would both chuck a couple of grenades at the aberrant and mutated monsters leading the monster parties.
Needless to say, having three to four grenades exploding in a tightly packed group of monsters made our efficacy completely out of the norm but although the charcoal was all but free in Seshat's shop, I was made well aware that Sulfur was a rather rare material due to it needing to be harvested from the dangerous area's that not only had its natural poison gases from where the Sulphur came up from the ground. But there were also highly toxic monsters that thrived in that environment.
So, each grenade cost me literally like five thousand valis worth of Sulphur which was why I was only using it for the aberrant and mutated as I could justify its use as I couldn't beat the monsters anyway, and most importantly, I needed their monster stones so I could upgrade everything to do with my magic basically.
So, no matter what even if I turned in all the monster stones even the aberrant and mutated ones, I was at a net loss in Valis after using like a dozen grenades over the course of the day.
"Some type of mage testing his magic?" I heard a voice speak from around the corner and low and behold I saw Roseanne leading her little trio of beautiful elvish ladies who froze seeing me standing over the charred and torn apart corpses of the monster party in this particular room while my drone was busy tearing out all the monster stones.
"Ladies... As you can see, I have already cleared out the monsters. So please turn back." I said seeing Roseanne's eyes flash with greed at seeing the couple dozen monsters lying on the ground.
"Hmm? Do you need help clearing these out then? Our little Mia here is very adept with her hands and can help your... automaton out." She said confidently and I felt a bit of dismay as Mia's little facade of happy-go-lucky energy changed into a rather serious and if anything, cruel smile.
"Look... Walk away or you will die here." I said swallowing as I held my last grenade in hand... In that tight corridor as long as I didn't throw the grenade too far past them, they would be in the so-called kill radius.
Roseanne merely sighed as she looked at me and then tilted her head. "Human... I can see you are as green as it comes, being here in the dungeon. I will not have nightmares should I slit your throat to take your haul of the day, now lean against the wall with your face to the wall so we can loot you, and then we will leave you to try to make it back up to the surface." She very clearly explained, and I realized what the cruel smile Mia had was for.
She loved the knowledge that I was going to attempt to make my way up to the surface unarmed...
A whole five seconds of stunned silence passed by as the three girls approached me with their bows drawn and I saw Sir Flufflykins the First who was sitting beside the wall next to the entryway trying to push himself to help but with him being a sentry he couldn't do anything, and my Wulfrim Drone was already hovering beside me seemingly prepared to intercept the elvish arrows.
But in those long moments of silence, I realized the little murderous instinct all soldiers and people thrown into battle had against their fellow man, and even if they were hot elves... In the end, I pushed the bottom to activate the grenade and then I called upon all my prior sports knowledge to fastball pitch the grenade right into Roseanne.
Even as I chucked the grenade, I felt the thumping impact of three arrows slam into my chest and hip shattering my armor rating and then I felt the arrow that hit my hip pierce through the space between my chest plate and the leg armor that got separated with my sort of exaggerated motion to throw the grenade at the elves as hard as I could.
With another loud explosion, I was thrown onto my back and all I could feel and acknowledge was the all-encompassing ringing in my ears as I didn't have my armor rating to shield me from the concussive force the grenade going off like ten meters away from me.
But after a moment when the stars left my vision, I could feel the gut-wrenching agony coming from my stomach and as I groaned, I saw the arrow sticking out and being pinched by my armor.
"Fuck... Drone! Grab the girl's bags and bring them to me." I said as I lay on the dungeon floor and I could barely hear the Wulfrim Drone's panicking beeping as it quickly brought Sir Flufflykins the First over to protect me first and then cut off the girls' bags that they were keeping their loot with its laser.
"I will resummon you in a bit." I grimaced after I threw all the girl's bags into my inventory and with a single glance at the clearly murdered elves, I summoned one of my five recall potions in my inventory and chugged it after burning in the image of the girl Falna's emblem.
Taking the recall potion was weird, to say the least as I wasn't magically whisked away in a kaleidoscope of light or whatever. Nope, my eyes went dim like I was falling asleep, and then just as I was wondering if that arrow hit something vital and I was dying. It was like I was half asleep and was jolted awake as I was welcomed by the harsh light coming down from Seshat's solar room.
"Seshat!" I yelled out as I quickly resummoned my summons, so they weren't left panicking in the dungeon.
Next thing I knew, I had a dusky-skinned goddess fretting over me as my summons was tittering in the background obviously worried about me.
"Here take this." She said having me down a health potion and as I went to chug it down, I choked and screamed as Seshat in one swift motion just ripped the arrow out of my gut.
"Drink the potion and you will be fine, you big baby." Seshat scolded me but even if her words were harsh, she still held onto my head and held my shaking form to drink the red potion that was already dulling the pain.
Thanks, Seshat..." I whispered as I pulled one of the neighboring blankets over my eyes, so I didn't have the magnified sun beaming down directly in my eyes.
Seshat just ran her fingers through my hair, and I realized as I was so scared of getting my stomach torn up more from the arrow and just laying as still as I could that my goddess had moved my head onto her lap, so she had been giving me a lap pillow while she took care of me.
Sure, my goddess may not have been some ultra-busty figure of fertility like Freya, Hestia, or Demeter, but with her lithe and tight frame, she was certainly an exotic beauty, and having my face resting against her thighs and smelling her honey and sandalwood scent was definitely relaxing.
"What happened in the dungeon Jake... No monsters use bows at all. So which Familia has barred its fangs at my only Familia member." She all but demanded.
"I am not sure... All I could tell was that it had a dove and a woman's face atop something that may have been a clam maybe." I said as I recited what I memorized, and I truly didn't know which Familia they were from.
"Hmm... A dove, a clam, and being so egotistical as to add your face to the stamp you bless your child's soul with... Who could that be." Seshat pondered and I heard her mutter about Freya but quickly threw that thought out as I would have died if Freya's little psychopaths wanted to kill me.
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