Chapter 8: Party Dynamics
George was sitting at his desk. Contemplating all the things that had been going on recently. First, the Head shaman ordered for 10,000 warriors to be sent to the battlefronts, then a massive gush of mana that everyone cultivate, followed by a freaking dungeon showing up.
Just then, an idea struck George.
Although he didn't know very much about dungeons, or the way they worked. He had heard that they are one of, if not, the best ways to get stronger.
The monsters can give you great loot, you can get more experience for killing them, and they always challenge those who attempt to face them.
"Eureka! I got it!", George exclaimed aloud.
"I'll send the remaining troops into the dungeon to get stronger. Those troops will then bring back treasures that we can sell to the neighbouring towns. That dungeon could be the way for me to bolster not only my military might, but also inflate this towns economy. Making me a bigger asset to the kingdom!
The only problem is if the surrounding cities, or even the capital, start to get suspicious.
What if...
what if I close off the city, I could have blood sworn goblins deliver the tribute to the capital, and stay hidden. I could block people from leaving... at least until the town becomes strong enough to rival the massive cities.
Plus, who's going to care if this tiny village goes undercover for a few years.
I might be able to get stronger as well!" George monologued. This last thought was what cemented the idea for George, since George has been stuck at the level 24 bottleneck for quite some time now.
George then immediately ordered for the 4 best soldiers within the village.
Although you're technically allowed to form a party up to 20, it also means you have to share the experience gain amongst 20 people as well. Most people tend to just stick to parties around 5 people.
These parties are made with the idea of strength, and versatility in mind: A healer, a scout/fighter, an endurance based fighter often known as a tank, a mage, and a straight damage dealer - that was the usual party people formed.
...
Ten minutes later, the 4 soldiers showed up, a tank, a scout, a soldier, and a mage. George was a healer, and he had quite a variety of skills.
Every 5 levels, one can choose an ability, or skill. These skills will have unique effects per user, and often match the users affinity.
For example, a dark user might get an ability that creates an area of complete darkness around them, while a Celestial user could heal, or even summon an angle if their level was high enough.
George had 4 skills, and although the contract affinity didn't have too many combat uses, he had a few support skills.
The group made their way to the dungeon entrance.
George stopped at the entrance, and pulled out 3 items.
A copper coin, a silver coin, and a healing potion.
Healing potions were a valuable novelty in the minor goblin towns, they were an alchemic product that could recover wounds.
So, knowing this, George tossed everything into the first dungeon room.
"Everyone move back!" George told his other party members.
They did. "Boss, why'd you throw those valuable items to the dungeon?" the soldier asked.
"Isn't it obvious, he's feeding items to the dungeon so it drops them as dungeon loot, you meathead!" The mage replied, rather aggressively.
"You two, stop arguing, and yes, Gobmeg is correct, I am feeding the Dungeon, now let's wait 10 minutes so the dungeon can process this.
...
"Hey, Celes, why did those Goblins just throw me those items? Aren't they just wasting their items?" Carl asked, curiously.
"Oh, my Gosh, how have I not told you this! Carl, one of the main reasons people use dungeons is because of loot. When you kill a dungeon monster, they're supposed to drop loot.
If you go into your status page, and think the word, 'Dungeon Loot', a new page should come up." Celes replied.
When Carl did this, he saw a page with all his monsters on it, and next to the monster icons, was plus icon, upon focussing on, a new status page came up, saying "would you like to add dungeon drop to monster?", with a list of all the items could create listed on it.
Next to that, he saw an icon that had a '%' sign on it, Carl on it focused and it said "chance of loot dropping".
He immediately understood what to do.
Before he did though, Carl decided to combine Glittering Wood Moss with itself.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
[You have combined 'Glittering Wood Moss', with 'Glittering Wood Moss'
Item Name: Healer's Moss
Item Rarity: Rare
Item Type: Alchemical Ingredient
Description: This wonder moss is coveted around the World, and is one of the primary ingredients for making High grade Healing potions, it can also heal on touch, and has a mild detox effect.
Alteration Made by: Enhancer - has a when consumed, has a 10% chance to increase endurance by +1
Alteration Made by: Quintessence - Can cure poisons up to the Decent Grade]
Carl selected the icon of the Glittering Wood Moss Monstrosity, and made it so that it has a 100% chance to drop between 3 and 7 wood coins, with a 20% chance to drop some Healer's Moss
He figured out that he could downgrade the effects of the items he had, so for the Shaman-shrooms, he gave them a 100% chance to drop a copper coin, and a 5% chance to drop a manashroom, but he made it so the manashroom only replicates the mana that it is currently in, so it will enhance the density of a certain type of mana in a room.
Carl also downgraded the manshrooms he had put in all the rooms into a different variety that did the same as the downgraded manashroom, but with an even lesser of an affect.
He made the rock Goblins drop 22 copper coins, and have a 2% chance to drop the enhanced iron, a 1% chance to drop the reinforced stone, and a 0.001% chance to drop the Flesh of Gaia... He thought that It could lead to a few funny situations.
Last of all, Carl made the Blade Goblin drop a silver coin, have a 50% chance to drop a Rusty Iron Sword, and a 1% chance to drop the Hide of the Iron Coyote King.
With that done, Carl patiently waited for goblins to return.
...
"Hey Boss, do you think it's done now?", the tank said.
"Hmm, we might as well go check, is everyone ready?" George replied.
"Yes", the others said in unison.
"Then let's move out!"
It didn't take them long to reach the dungeon. Nothing seemed different, so they made their way inside.
George had been informed, in detail, about what happened inside the dungeon. So when the stone wall slammed down, no one was surprised.
They all stood around the door, and waited.
and waited...
nothing happened.
"Boss, nothings happening..." one of the the goblins said.
"Yeah, I'm seeing the same thing you are, moron. Let's just continue on, but be careful", George replied.
And so they did. They were walking forward in a circular position, having the healer in the middle, and the others surrounding.
As they reached roughly halfway between the door and the exit, the room suddenly changed. As it had been described, three pillars of moss rose up from the floor, thorny tentacles slashing around haphazardly.
"Positions men!" George shouted.
While the monsters would be tough enough to be able to fight one on one with one of the warriors, they were no match for the combined might of 5 elite goblins, with buffs.
At this point, the group of goblins were feeling quite confident, they barely even broke a sweat during that fight.
They casually walked into the second room.
They were telling jokes, and stories, when they suddenly heard their tank, Gobrintin shriek. 4 ghost looking creatures came flying towards him. One made of fire - that melted part of his heavy steel armour, another made of air - it sent out blades of air, that left gaping cuts all over his body, the next was one of water - it froze the air around, and sent out a spell to cover his legs in ice; freeing him in place. The last was a spirit made of stone - it attacked him head on, punching at his shield, leaving a massive dent.
The others reacted instantly, casting spells, and holding off the spirits.
"Contractual obligation!" George shouted, it was a spell that gave hosts vitality to a consenting partner, who would have to repay a set amount back.
The wounds on Gobrintin's body began healing at a visible rate, and aftera few seconds, he looked well enough to fight.
George keeled over, and threw up blood. Unsurprisingly, George's endurance stat was extremely low. If he had taken the same amount of abuse Gobrintin had just taken, he'd certainly be dead.
Gobrintin ran out onto the battlefield, directly taking on the Earth spirit.
"You dented my shield, you BASTARD!" Gobrintin activated a skill common with tanks, and front line fighters, known as 'Berserker rage'. It turned his wisdom and intelligence attributes into strength and endurance, as well as nullified all physical pain he felt, for 15 seconds. Gobrintin had leveled the skill to level 9, giving him a 1.9x multiplier to his strength and endurance along with the attribute swap.. The downside to the skill was that he could no longer differentiate friend from foe, and would attack the closest thing he could see. In this case, it was the Earth spirit.
He was a tornado of destruction.
Gobrintin's Strength and endurance were now both over 100, and the Earth spirit was crushed in but a few seconds.
The next closest entity was the water spirit.
Gobrintin still had about 10 seconds left on his berserker skill, so he charged at the spirit.
Seeing this, the water spirit shot out a beam of frost, attempting to cement Gobrintin's legs in place.
But it turned out to be a fruitless effort, while that attack worked on Gobrintin before, it was nothing compared to his strength.
Gobrintin didn't seem to even notice as he continued his charge.
Gobrintin was about to reach the elemental when a patch of moss on the floor rose up from the floor. It was a Glittering wood moss monstrosity.
Being a tank, Gobrintin didn't have very much dexterity, so when he noticed the moss creature rising up right where his leg was about to land, he couldn't do anything but watch in horror as his foot landed on the spot, and was entangled in the tentacles of the moss creature.
Gobrintin fell flat on his face...
The moss monstrosity continued to envelop him in its tentacles.
Gobrintin tried to struggle out, and it looked like he was going to get free... until the berserker skill ran out. A wave of exhaustion rolled over Gobrintin, he could barely move his muscles as the moss monstrosity enveloped him, sending out a particularly thorny tentacle to cut open his throat.
Gobrintin had died.
A look of horror and shock covered the faces of the party members as they saw what happened to their tank. They wanted to run over and save him, but they were too preoccupied with the other spirits.
Among them, Gobmeg was particularly disheartened, although it seemed like they hated each other, and were always arguing, Gobrintin and he were practically brothers, having fought alongside each other in dozens of battles. He considered their relationship stronger than blood.
So it wasn't too unexpected to see the extremely physically weak mage running out onto the battlefield screaming and crying.
At least that was the case until one of his passive abilities, 'mana sense', picked up a thin strand of mana connecting one of the spirits to a mushroom sitting on the wall.
Gobmeg's brain went blank a he realised what was happening.
"Those mushrooms, they're controlling the spirits", Gobmeg mumbled, tears blurring his vision. They killed Gobrintin.
Memories of the time he had spent with his brother rushed through his mind as he just stood there.
...
"Yes, get him, go!"
I was shouting out cheers as I watched the battle continue on. I was right to move all the Shaman-shrooms that contracted with high grade spirits to the storage room. Even these lesser spirits were shockingly strong.
When the tank died, I couldn't help but exclaim in happiness, he had been level 25, getting me to level 4, and an over 80% of the way to level 5.
I really wanted to get to level 5, and I saw an opportunity to, when that annoying cryomancer mage, who had been overwhelming my fire spirit, stopped in place... right in the middle of the battlefield.
I ordered all the other spirits in the room to begin focusing fire on the mage. But that isn't what happened. The mage cast a spell known as ice bolt, and shot it toward one of the Shaman-shrooms on the wall.
The weak mushroom couldn't bare the attack, and immediately died, vanishing to become part of the dungeons mana, dropping several copper coins, and nothing else.
"The air spirit, who had been fighting with the rogue, immediately disappeared, causing the confused rogue, called Gobrog, to look around in puzzlement.
"Attack the mushrooms with the white spots on their tops!" Gobmeg exclaimed.
Hearing this, the other goblins in the party changed course, doing just as Gobmeg said. Soon enough, all the spirits disappeared, and al that was left in the room was the bulging pile of moss in the middle of room.
Realising the predicament it was in, the Moss monstrosity sprang towards the weakest looking goblin, Gobmeg. It didn't get very far, as the Rogue moved too quickly for the Moss monster to notice, and just like that, the moss monster who had murdered their friend was cut in half, and disappeared into a single copper coin.
No one said anything as they looked towards the red blood stain in the middle of the room.
After several more minutes of silence, George said "Let's leave this hell hole, guys", and so they did. Due to their tiredness, or maybe their sadness over the loss of their friend, but they didn't notice that one member of their party did not follow them out of the dungeon.
As they were climbing the stairway back to the city, one of them, the soldier, suddenly stopped, and said, "Hey, guys, where's Gobmeg".
The other two turned in horror, as they realised that he wasn't behind them. "That idiot!" George shouted.
Then they heard a shout coming from down the stairway they had just came from, "I'm gonna destroy this FREAKING DUNGEON!". This proclamation was followed by a series of blood chilling screams, before finishing in silence.
No one moved to return to the dungeon, they all knew what had happened to the grief stricken goblin. They all just stood there, an even gloomier mood fell over the party, as they continued to walk back. No of them could be bothered to check their status. All of them had risen at least 3 levels, with Gobrog having gained a total of 4 levels.
All of them just wanted to go home to bed. All were tired, exhausted, and depressed.
...
One person was happy though, a dungeon core called Carl.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
03O
03O Thanks to: Doctor_Kal
For being the first to comment on the previous chapter.
Thank you for reading :)
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