Chapter 138: Memorial falls (4)
The skeletons will only receive reinforcements from the waterfall once adventurers enter the room/cavern. There can be up to 50 of them in the room alone but that number can triple when adventurers enter and remain long enough.
The skeletons are fairly weak and unless I can also bring forth a change in the newly generated ones strengthening them is a waste of time.
The other monsters in the room are the piranhas. They are the last defense between the stairs to the lower floor and the adventurers. A particularly large specimen among them is also the boss of this room.
The way boss monsters seem to work according to Daedalus' notes is that a dungeon master can promote a certain number of monsters to boss monsters which will strengthen them in some way or another. The piranha in question has for example grown bigger and become able to swim much faster than the others.
<Can you stop mentally calling them piranhas? They are a species of monsters called vicious piranhas, not a common animal.>
Is there any difference?
<Yes there is.>
Fine, then I'll start training the vicious piranhas. Happy?
<Very much so.>
I walk over to Charon's boat and leave all my equipment with him. Don't want that to get wet after all.
Before I can reconsider I jump into the lake with a splash. The cold water washes over me and for a moment I begin to panic. But I quickly control myself and resurface after a few broad strokes. Maybe jumping into the lake wasn't the best idea.
However, it got the attention of the vicious piranhas. The boss monster among them swims up to the lake surface and gives me a curious look over. He can't speak but with my universal monster language skill, I should be able to at least partially communicate with this fish.
"Hi there, I'm Guy. I was sent here to help improve the defense of this boss room. I have a few suggestions for you and your followers so I would be grateful if you could give me a moment of your time."
The large piranha begins to swim idle circles around me and I take that as affirmation. If my words didn't catch its interest it could have dove back down anytime now.
"Here goes. I couldn't help but notice that when you attacked the adventurers you did so as individuals. While that might make dodging all of you hard it also means that if one of you does get in a bite the damage won't be that big."
The vicious piranha opens its mouth and snaps it shut as if to contradict my comment about one bite not doing much damage. Despite this little show of protest, the vicious piranha resumes swimming lazy circles around me.
"So, I've been thinking that you should form shoals or something like that. You know, attack as a synchronized group so that you are strong enough to directly tear your opponent apart."
I keep floating in place lightly kicking my legs to keep my head above water while the vicious piranha boss has stopped swimming circles around me. I swear the fish has a pensive look on its face even if the concept of such a look is usually reserved for humanoids.
A few seconds later the vicious piranha boss dives underwater and swims towards the wild chaos of other vicious piranhas in the water below.
I can tell that they are communicating in some weird way based on the patterns they swim around each other but there are too many fish for me to keep track of a single one. I can't make out what they are saying to one another but they soon split apart into multiple loose groups that swim around pretending to attack a specific area of water.
I like how quickly they picked up the whole swimming as a group thing but this isn't going to cut it. They are just individual fish swimming in roughly the same direction. A shoal should be much tighter and better synchronized.
As the vicious piranha boss comes to me seeking approval I relay my thought and he isn't happy about the latter part. Seems this guy is pretty prideful.
Despite being annoyed at my criticism the vicious piranha boss returns to instruct the others. It barely begins to swim circles when the others all form into groups as I had described.
Did they hear me? They might have been watching the gestures I used while talking. That seems more plausible than them hearing me.
The now tightly formed groups of vicious piranhas tear through the water like larger organisms. Their group work is quite impressive considering that this should be the first time they are doing this.
<Guy, I think you should take a look at the dungeon map. Things might get a bit...intense in a few moments.>
I take my attention off the vicious piranhas and open my dungeon map to find multiple groups of red dots moving through the fourth floor heading straight for the stairs. Looks like a unique monster's appearance is enough to warrant a hunt of multiple teams.
Navi, can monsters of this floor be brought into the boss room?
<Great idea. They can indeed be assembled in the boss room but the monsters will only stay for so long before wandering off on their own.>
Yeah, I realize that I won't be able to gather much but this room was already struggling to stop just one team and now I can see at least five coming over. Also, my advantage of being hidden is probably gone if the survivors told the about me which any responsible person would do.
I spend roughly twenty minutes running around the vicinity of the boss room collecting every skeleton I can find. In addition to the fifty skeletons that were originally in the boss room, there are now thirty-odd new skeletons in the room.
Time to prepare for a rough fight.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone