Chapter 108: Tactical Defusing (2/2)
“We're a bunch of people in black armor, could be anyone really. Dunno if they know about a hired squad of the Hand making an appearance.” Ilea commented and spun Aki around to make sure he wouldn't suddenly snore off. She wasn't sure the guy was even with her most of the time in the past days but he did like it whenever there was action.
With raised arms Claire walked closer to the adventurers until there was only a couple meters of water between them. Ilea noticed that a lot of the adventurers were relaxing already, some even leaving the formation.
“Shadow's Hand, we've been hired to help with the exploration.” there were still some doubtful faces but Claire calmly moved her backpack to the front before she got out a piece of paper with the guild seal on it. An additional document they had gotten when receiving the mission. Even the last of the people seemed more relaxed now upon viewing the document and Claire soon waved the group over as she herself jumped onto the plateau of rock where the camp was made. Compared to the stares they had gotten in Damwell, Ilea noticed a lot more respectful nods their way in addition to some smiles and relieved faces.
It seemed that the exploration was going just as well as described by the guild which was confirmed by one of the rangers in the group of adventurers. “Yea we lost two more since the request went out. Didn't know there would be a shadow squad hired but the report we sent to the guild was quite detailed. I assume you read it?” the woman asked.
“I did, poison, arrows, rusty spike traps. No monsters discovered so far.” Claire summarized. She had talked a little more about the report on their flight here but to Ilea it didn't seem as dangerous.
“So how will you go about it?” the woman asked and Claire just motioned to Ilea.
“Are you sure about this?” Claire asked.
“Oh yes, I'm the trap buster 3000.” Ilea said in a completely serious tone before a veil of ash formed around her. She then unceremoniously put her pack down and got a piece of paper and her pen out to draw out a map. Eve smiled and Claire shrugged as Trian sat down on a stone nearby.
“Don't take too long, and get us if you find anything interesting. Don't touch anything.” Trian said to her which made Ilea grin from ear to ear.
“I'll touch everything mate...all of the things...” she giggled and vanished into the cave.
“Y... you sure she'll be alright?” the ranger asked Claire, obviously not intimidated by the prospect of a shadow squad. Not surprising with her level being at one hundred and sixty herself.
“She's quite... durable.” Claire said and got out some documents from her backpack, ready to start writing the report for this mission. She liked to be ahead when it came to documentation. Her mood was high though as they had already made a substantial amount of money in just one day. The jobs given to the Hand were certainly profitable. Looking around at the icy rocks, the rune mage smiled. She might have paid back her debt to the Guild sooner than expected.
“Are you serious...” Ilea asked as a bunch of poison darts flew her way, interrupted in their short flight by the ash flowing around her. She kept herself over the water with both her wings and by simply grabbing onto the rock. The traps were well hidden and without her sphere Ilea would've been quite surprised at some of them. Even then none would've likely managed to injure her in any major way. Most of her time was spent drawing out the ruin, at this point mostly a cave with hints of symmetrical influences.
A sudden rock slide above her made some pieces tumble towards her that would've pushed her onto the spikes hiding in the water below but with a well timed blink Ilea simply stood on top of the traps. 'Compared to the Taleen this seems like amateur hour...' she thought but considering the traps here were based mostly on mechanical finesse and less runic, it was certainly impressive. Ilea saw the spikes below enter even the stone itself, speaking for the quality of the metal used. 'And that for a lousy trap...' she thought as she continued onwards.
An hour of trap deactivation turned into two as Ilea chose more often to simply let the mechanisms spring instead of trying to dismantle them. The caves ran rather deep and Ilea was glad she could blink through water as many sections were flooded or even held traps of such nature. Finally Ilea came up on a massive stone door with runes carved into it. Still there was no sign of any life inside the ruins but Ilea had a feeling this would be quite different after entering whatever the stone door was protecting.
She couldn't see through with her Sphere and neither could she blink inside. The attempt even released some poison darts straight from the door which did manage to pierce her veil of ash. An impressive feat to say the least.
'ding' 'You have been poisoned by ???. -100 HP/s -100 Stamina/s'
'Yea I can see this dungeon being deadly to people without healers or poison resistances...' she thought, smiling and activating Hunter Recovery. It didn't even say how long the poison would last and the Stamina part made her a little anxious. Ilea quickly ran back and found a space between a couple rocks to hide and wait out the poison in case something came up while she was healing and out of stamina.
The poison took a total of ten minutes to completely wear off. Sixty thousand health in total were lost and regained as Ilea waited, nearly paralyzed by the lack of stamina, a state she rarely reached through conventional training and fighting. The idea of getting a stamina drain resistance and perhaps a drowning resistance became quite important to her as she struggled to not fall onto the ground which was at least half a meter deep in water.
With the combined effort of Meditation, Poison Resistance, Hunter Recovery and Veil of Ash which doubled the resistance again, the poison was fought off and removed from her body. Ilea thought that not even Trian would've likely survived that one, not even with her help. 'What the hell... some bloody poison darts killing a literal thunder vampire...' it just seemed wrong to her. 'Maybe we should get a full time healer in the group just to make sure something like this doesn't happen.'
She slowly got up and out of her hiding spot, stretching every limb of her body until she felt capable again to fight off some poison darts. A feat now probably close to her survival of fighting the Taleen Praetorians. 'Maybe this ruin isn't quite so far away from the dungeon...' she thought and chuckled as she touched the round stone door. Trying to blink inside again didn't release any more darts but still wasn't possible for her. She didn't want to force her way in as that would likely cause some other problems, problems that now weren't just her own anymore.
Ilea checked around the room for any hidden traps she might have missed and only found two more dart traps that she destroyed without issue. Having no way to safely continue she made her way back to the adventurer camp with the map she had been adding to continuously. There were a lot of side tunnels as well but all of them ended in traps. Whoever built this place definitely didn't want anybody to find a place of safe rest, at least not until the traps had been activated.
Coming out of the cave Ilea sped up, hearing the sound of magic and explosions. She came out to her team and most of the adventurers being engaged with some kind of stone creature.
[Stone Guardian of Karul – lvl ??]
“Oh shit...” she exclaimed and activated all her buffs, jumping into combat with a smile.