Bab 22: Second floor
Jade is held up by one of the shield-bearers and the goblins' charge is completely stopped too. I throw a few more miniature javelins but they don't cause any damage since the mages stand too close to the shield-bearers.
Time to get up close and personal with one of those shield-bearers. I draw my two daggers and move into melee. Jade is having trouble with one of the shield-bearers so I move to help her.
The short sword is stabbing out repeatedly and makes it impossible for Jade to get a good angle to attack or get past. I slink to the side and try to intercept the short sword to give Jade an opening. My attempt at interception doesn't go so well and I get a shallow cut on my left arm.
However, Jade manages to convert my sad attempt to help into an opening and slips past the shield-bearer who turns to follow her. This, in turn, creates an opportunity for me to him straight into the armpit with one of my daggers. After that, I also go past him and run at the mage that is maintaining the globe of light.
In my peripheral view, I see Jade dive headfirst into a fireball to reach the second mage. Does she not have any hesitation?
The mage before me looks at me with scared eyes but I won't hesitate because my enemy is scared. My dagger sinks into his stomach with great ease and he coughs up a mouthful of blood.
My Joy at taking out the mage doesn't last long as a short sword is driven through my back. I struggle to look behind myself and see a deathly pale shield-bearer who is being attacked by multiple goblins. He must have given up his defense just to kill me.
Why? His actions wouldn't save him or the mage. Was it revenge or just a desire to take out the strongest enemy in reach? It doesn't matter anymore.
Pain spreads through my body and sets it aflame with agony as I sink into the sweet darkness that must represent death.
<It doesn't represent death. This darkness is merely caused by your soul being disconnected from your body, therefore losing all senses. The result is what you call darkness.>
Can't a guy just spend his time dying in peace!
'Both of you shut up!'
Is that you Jade? Did you die too?
'Who else is there in this God-forsaken place?! And yes I died too, the fireball got me pretty good and my body gave out after I buried my fangs in the mage's throat.'
<And without further ado. Congratulations on participating in killing two mages and three shield-bearers. You have received a tremendous amount of EXP and reached level 10.>
Ten already, huh.
<Time for you to respawn.>
I am forcefully yanked out of the darkness and slam into my 'new' body. As I stand up everything around me is spinning and I need a moment to regain my balance.
<A little dizziness is normal when you are immediately respawned. Your soul should get used to it after a thousand or so times. For now, I've dropped the two of you off on the second floor so you can proceed from here.>
So we have caught up with the faster groups. While this may save us a lot of running around the groups that advance the fastest are usually stronger. Can we at least go back to setting traps?
<They might be stronger or just stupid and reckless. Setting traps is fine. I told you to try increasing the efficiency but it seems you aren't yet ready to face them openly.>
"Jade, are you fine with setting ambushed again from now on?"
"Fine by me. That fireball was flipping painful so it would be nice if such a situation could be avoided."
We set up another more ambushes like before take out three teams comprised of mostly swordsmen and the occasional mage or shield-bearer. Our strategy is sound and we have amassed another group of armed goblins.
After we have finished off the third group Navi informs us that a group of adventurers has just reached the third floor. Jade reacts a tiny bit irritated by Navi's prompt.
"Why are you even telling us this? Should we just suicide attack again and move up another floor? How many floors are there even?"
<Please don't be like that. I'm required to inform you of such developments whenever they happen. Also, we do not know how many floors this dungeon has.>
Wait, you don't? Aren't you overlooking the entire dungeon?
I open my dungeon map and move to the higher floors. Indeed after the fourth floor, there is nothing displayed on the map.
<To prevent information leaks the bigger dungeons only give us access to the floors they deem relevant. It's unfortunate but we just have to deal with it. All we know is that the fifth floor and upwards are themed floors meaning they are landscapes used in separate spaces.>
"That's absolute BS! Why don't we have access to the layout of the whole dungeon? Aren't we protecting it?"
<Jade, our working relationship with the dungeons is complicated and has a great number of clauses that we must follow.>
"Come on, let's just continue ambushing adventurers on this floor. The dungeon has its own monsters and it shouldn't matter in what sequence we fight the adventurers, right?"
<I guess at this level it should still be fine. Just do your best.>
With Navi giving her permission we can keep stopping them here. For now, I should take a gander at my status to see if anything changed.
Status Guy Lv.12 Goblin
Mp 10+11+0
Strength 5+11+2
Constitution 5+11+2
Speed 5+11+3
Magic ability 0+11+0
Skills:
universal humanoid language, universal monster language, dungeon map
Sword use lv. 1; enhanced stamina lv. 3; dismantling lv. 5; breathing technique lv. 1; trap making lv. 2; dagger use lv. 2; throwing lv.3
Dammit, I forgot about using the breathing technique. Edward is going to kill me!
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
djarcher
djarcher I think it's time to talk about Guy's evolution. His choices so far are hobgoblin, dagger goblin as well as goblin trapper. Hobgoblin is just the generic evolution, dagger goblin will increase his melee skills and goblin trapper... well, he will lean more towards ambushes.
Any opinions?
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone