The first floor of the Living Stone Caverns is comprised of Basic rock monsters with a couple of Elites as bosses. We let Copper and Crystal clear out as much as they can. Although neither of them intends to become a primary warrior, this is the sort of world where even noncombatants can benefit from having the skills not to be killed by monsters.

Using my copper rod of Aesculapius (thank you, Recollection), I try healing the two newspawn dwarves when they get hurt.

Skill acquired: Invocation (Symbol of Healing) Description: You can invoke the power of one of various symbols of healing or life in order to heal injuries, cure illnesses, and otherwise repair physical damage to the body.

The amount of healing done for my Inspiration is barely noticeable, but I've got the skill now at least. And my skill page is… getting really cluttered by this point and I've only just started learning magical skills. Collapsing it into categories with a total number is convenient sometimes but I really like seeing my actual skill numbers, especially since they're what's capped.

No help for it. Clutter away! Let's see how many Invocations I can unlock because it seems especially perfect for my class. So does Wizardry but Invocation is a little more accessible and my current knowledge of sigils is on par with my memory of Japanese. Sushi, katana, ninja… okay, I'll stop that before I accidentally unlock Language (Japanese).

I've found that Clairvoyance has become very distracting after a while, especially in a dungeon. It's beautiful, but I'm having to push more and more of the information I can see into [Ghost Eyes] to compartmentalize it. I have, what, a dozen various skills that detect things? It's too much for a meat-brain to keep track of at once. System windows are more useful for that, at least, but there's something else I want to try.

"Let me try that [Ghostly Watcher] spell," I say.

"Now?" Milo says. "I already scouted the floor, but okay."

I shake my head. "I have another idea for it."

Milo gives the instructions again, but I barely feel like I need them. Enhanced Soul skills were already the start. I draw on [Fractal Consciousness] and [Ghost Eyes] as I repeat Milo's incantation, and pull.

Skill acquired: Necromancy (Ghostly Watcher) Description: You may summon forth a spirit into the physical plane. This spirit can see and hear, but is incorporeal and intangible. It cannot interact with the environment and will not be affected by physical attacks.

Drake Corwen looks up at me with his own eyes, and grins widely. I want you to follow after me and watch.

[What, I'm your third person camera now?] I send to him in amusement, even though I clearly remember having thought of this while I was him. [Okay, have fun. I'll keep the party notifications going.]

I'd expected a higher Inspiration drain from keeping this skill running, but it seems shutting off the ridiculous number of skills I/he had going at any given time freed up a lot of regeneration. The only thing absolutely essential is [Aura Sight] set to showing disposition to point out the positions of enemies and friendlies.

"The glowing eyes in the air are kind of creepy," Basalt says.

"There's got to be a way to hide them, but I'll not worry about it right now," Drake says. "The monsters won't care."

We continue to fight our way through the dungeon, trying out skills and practicing on things that aren't that dangerous. Anise is standing back ready to help if we get in over our heads.

The frost wand is disappointing against rock monsters, but the results are unsurprising. It's still good practice to keep at it even if the only result is that a moving statue got lightly snowed upon, I suppose.

"Let me get a shot at one of the bosses," Drake says. "I want to try something."

Drake points the copper rod at the Elite rock raccoon, which is politely standing at the far end of the room waiting for someone to get close enough. Electricity crackles and a tiny shock jolts his hand. Undeterred, he grits his teeth and keeps at it until low on Inspiration.

"You okay there?" Rowan asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Drake says. "I was just expecting, you know, an impressive bolt of lightning blasting the monster apart."

Anise laughs. "You'll get there!"

Our skills gradually improve as we make our way down the dungeon. There's probably multiple paths here but we're mostly just playing it straightforward for our first run and not trying to do anything fancy. The dungeon isn't going anywhere and we can run it as many times as we like, but the Beer Festival is tomorrow and there's many low level dungeons Copper and Crystal haven't run yet.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Ugh, it's still not working," Jade complains, as she picks up a thrown dagger. "I wanted to, like, throw my daggers without actually throwing them, you know? I've seen higher level Rogues do that! But they never told me how and I just keep throwing my actual daggers instead."

"You need to cast the spell through the daggers," Drake explains. "Like how you'd absorb concepts from the world into your enhancement skills, just in reverse."

"That's easy for you to say, [Resonant Child]," Jade grumbles. "I'll keep trying."

A rumbling sound announces the presence of the final boss before we see it. A coal-black serpentine head rises out from a dark recess, followed by another, and another. By the time the hydra's main body emerges, five heads in total are gazing at the party. Each of them has three gemstone eyes with a different color for each head.

The five heads roar in unison, then the hydra patiently waits for us to get close enough to aggro it.

I dutifully analyze the creature's aura and relay the system information to the party. The boss itself may be Heroic rank, but each head seems only about as tough as an Elite, each of them with one unique ability. We can totally do this. Maybe.

"Copper, Crystal, you better stay back and take care of any minions that the boss might summon," Basalt says. "This thing's Heroic so you probably won't even be able to hurt it."

Crystal stares at the hydra with wide eyes. "Don't need to tell me twice."

"Everyone ready?" Basalt asks.

The party confirms they're ready, and he charges forward with his battle axe. The blade glows when he swings it, and bronze bites into the obsidian to leave a crack in its rocky hide. Jade circles around behind it as well as she can, but with five heads, it's difficult to hide.

The head with turquoise eyes opens its mouth and a powerful gust of wind almost knocks the party off their feet. The two Basic dwarves go flying almost out of the room. Jade stumbles and ducks behind a stalagmite. Rowan's shield keeps it from affecting himself and Drake.

Drake checks to make sure the dwarves aren't badly hurt before pointing his rod toward the boss monster. The head with yellow topaz eyes fixes its gaze upon him.

Electricity arcs between them from the topaz eyes to the copper rod as they both cast at the same time. The hydra's Heroic lightning bolt was much more powerful than Drake's tiny static zaps. It still dealt an improbably low amount of damage for what it was. Rowan's forcefield couldn't completely stop it, but he did keep it from instantly killing anyone.

Milo mutters an Incantation, and a stalactite crashes down into the hydra, nearly pulping the lightning-shooting head.

The sapphire eyes of another head flash, and it opens its mouth to spew out a salivary tide. Basalt holds his ground, but Milo is knocked off his feet and washes up several meters away.

Jade, getting frustrated at her daggers having very little effect upon the monster, takes a step back and looks up at the remaining four heads in determination. A head with moonstone eyes belches out a cloud of dense fog. Jade's vis surges through her daggers, sending a cutting wind into the open mouth. The rock creature chokes on its own fog, and a coughing fit incapacitates the head as it tries to expel the foreign magic.

The final head has white jade eyes, which shine brightly as it spews forth a stream of sleet. Rowan catches it with his forcefield and redirects it to coat the hydra itself in ice instead of the party.

Drake takes a deep breath and focuses upon his copper rod, burning a massive amount of Inspiration to channel his vis into another spell. Lightning shoots out from the rod and strikes the frozen monster, destroying another head.

Skill acquired: Invocation (Electric Current) Description: You can control the flow of electricity through a conductive material. Additionally, you are resistant to damage from electricity.

The fight continues on for a bit longer as the party wears down the hydra, but it's on the back foot by this point and starting to fall apart. After a few more rounds of that, the boss monster crumbles into shards of obsidian.

I see the Deed as it flows into Drake's aura.

You have defeated a Heroic Obsidian Hydra. You have cleared the Living Stone Caverns. You have received a tiny increase to your rank progression.

I can tell the rank is now above zero, but not enough that the rank progression meter on my character sheet has gone above 0%. Ugh, rounding. Let's make it clearer that this is an approximation. I get it to say "< 5%" instead. Most of this stuff is customizable if you know where to look. I will probably play with it more later. Right now, there's loot to identify.

Jade has gotten the boss chest disarmed and unlocked, revealing a small pile of coins and five artifacts. An obsidian dagger with a moonstone in the hilt, aspected with the concepts of fog and concealment. Jade quickly calls dibs on that. An obsidian helmet with defense bonuses goes to Basalt. Rowan receives a pair of rubber boots with slip-resistant soles and protection from electricity. Milo gets a fancy gem-studded copper torc that seems to boost Incantations.

Finally, Drake claims the last item that nobody else wanted: A set of copper tweezers.

"Tweezers?" Rowan says, pausing in pulling on his new boots to look over at me. "That seems like a crappy reward compared to what the rest of us got."

"They're perfect," Drake says. "They have increased grabbing accuracy and holding ability, and have a 'softness' effect that makes them less likely to damage something."

"Okay, if you're thrilled to get tweezers, who am I to complain?" Rowan says.

We've also gotten a fine assortment of pretty but useless fake gems and magically aspected fake gems. These will probably be useful. I keep the aspected ones in my magic bag. We only manage to retrieve an eye from three of the five hydra heads, given the damage made to them.

"Is that it?" Crystal says. "I hope that's the end of this dungeon, because I don't care to see what another floor might be like right now."

"Yeah, this is it," Anise says.

"We'd be heading back now even if it wasn't, I think," Basalt says. "I don't want to try a boss that's tougher than that just yet."

"Well done, everyone," Copper says heartily. "Thanks for letting us clear some of the trash on the way down."

As we make our way back out, I keep a ghostly eye or two out for any secrets we might have missed, now that there's no more rock monsters attacking us. No one wants to investigate further right now, though. Something about wanting to get out of here and rest up for tomorrow's festival. Fine, fine. We will uncover the secrets of this dungeon next time! I got three skills today, so I can't exactly complain about people wanting to call it a night.

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