Chapter 159 - Hadbufar (1/2)

Merlin and others began to give numbers of what they scavenged from the dead bodies of the orcs and the troll before they went ahead. They found a few armor pieces which they distributed among themselves according to whom it would fit best while the gold and resources just distributed equally.

The only piece of gold grade equipment they got from this floor was the axe that Dhrome held. Its head itself was as about two feet long and it was given to Tetsujin who was the only one who had experience with heavy weapons. He found it extremely hard to carry around due to its large head and found it imbalanced for proper use.

[Dhrome's Axe] (Two-handed Axe)

Level 15;

Attack Power +30;

Requirement: Strength 35; Endurance: 15;

Strength +10;

Special Effect: 10% higher damage caused on a critical hit..

Active Skill: Guillotine: Causes a damage of upto 300 HP in a fierce attack at one's neck. Would also cause bleed effect. Can only be used when the opponent has less than 10% of its health. Cooldown: 10 min.

Durability :40/40;

”If not for its active skill, it is completely useless,” said Tetsujin as he held it in his hands and tried to swing it a couple of times. ”It is very hard to attack at shoulder level using it. Don't have the proper strength attribute for it. Give it to the troll or I can try putting my extra attribute points into strength once I hit level 15.”

With that Merlin gave the axe to his troll servant and tried to make it lead behind the dwarves in entering the third floor. It always paid to have a strong vanguard and they didn't have the slightest idea of the third floor. So, he tried to make it go through the staircase which was actually a bit short for it.

”The troll can't enter the premises below,” said the dwarf as it led them down the staircase. Merlin decided to actually check the floor before considering the dwarf's advice.

They quickly went down the stairs and found themselves in a narrow passage which only had a few dead dwarfs and nothing else. It was a bit unlike the other floors. It was quite wide enough to allow more than 6 of them to stand beside one another, but was low in height, less than 6 feet tall with dim light shining from the gems spaced much distant compared to the ones in the floors above.

”Definitely, the ore access,” said Merlin. ”And made for dwarves.”

He realized that the reason that all the orcs and trolls were in the first two floors was because they couldn't actually stay comfortably here. The troll would actually be stuck at the bottom of the stairs and unable to move.

Merlin had to go back to the floor above and take all its equipment before he came back to the third floor. Luckily, the three shamans were able to move through the third floor, else he would have felt really bad on losing all his servants on the third floor. He had already lost his best servant and even if it managed to bend and move in the third floor it wouldn't be much effective as it had fight in close combat.

They moved slowly through the third floor which was much darker. They had to be much more careful in this floor as the roof was low and they had to fight dwarves in this floor. There were a bunch of smaller passages which lead to temporary quarters of the possessed dwarves. Not ordinary dwarves but ones being controlled by the lord 'Nakshakh' who was the final boss. These dwarves could be distinguished from the others by the blackened eyes. The good thing was that these passages are quite sparse compared to the other two floors. In the whole third floor there would only be ten such passages.

Dwarves were short like goblins mostly reaching four feet high. With height as a disadvantage, the game designers compensated with high defence. They also had high strength to compensate for their lack of reach. Moreover, dwarves were treated as expert forgers by the lore of the game. So, they had good armor and the loot would even involve forging designs.

These wouldn't usually pose much problems for players at this stage of the game as dwarf's low reach is still an advantage to others. Mostly, dwarfs and other races don't have conflicts at this stage of the game as the players need to have a level greater than 30 to move across racial regions. The dungeons are the first-time players experience fighting other light races.

The environment of the dungeon is also very suitable for the dwarves to fight. It was a dimly lit place where things were mostly dark and the dwarves who were short would attack the players below the belt which was always a bit hard to defend against. Though the goblins were the same height, their attacks didn't have the same strength as that of dwarves which could be comparable to the strength of normal human berserker at the same level. The goblins also had a better eyesight with longer range than humans.

The players who had yet to face the strong offence and tough defence would find it quite hard to get through this stage. This would be very difficult, and Balthazar doesn't realize this due to the fact that he joined the game quite late and at that time fighting dwarves was a common thing. The first contact with dwarves raised a ruckus and players would need change their styles slightly.

As they moved through the main passage, they soon came to see the first group of possessed dwarves. It was actually the two dwarves that they brought along which were able to notice them. Shadow also didn't get a chance to attack. As he remembered, the dwarfs had a better vision in the dark and even before scouting assassins were able to attack, the dwarves noticed the other players and attacked with their axes. Shadow also retreated back to the group as he knew that standing in their path would just get him trampled.

”Damn! They deal a lot more damage compared to gnomes,” said Bitter Beast who took the first attack on his shield and was pushed back by the attack. After the two dwarves by he side shouted about the enemies, he had already bent low to take their attacks but still found them to be quite stronger than the orcs attacks and even had a stronger blow back effect.