The next day they met up with Fiadh and Soon-Bok outside one of the team training rooms on the fifth floor. Lilit had talked to the rest of the party and after they did the group training to see who better fit with their style Lilit was going to hire a trainer and get a little more one-on-one training for her shield and mace. She’d done ok, but with some training she hoped to do better than just ok. She didn’t like feeling like she was letting the others down.
Fiadh and Soon-Bok were waiting for them outside the hall leading to the team rooms. Both were geared up. Fiadh stood tall for once in her blue robes with tiny silver stars sewn scattered across from mid-torso and up. She held a rge crooked, unshaped staff with a knot of wood wrapped around a dark inky orb. It looked like it had simply grown around the orb instead of being carved or shaped at all. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a rge bun at the back of her neck, drawing more attention to her pointed ears.
Soon-Bok had on very light looking leathers dyed a deep brown that neared bck. Over that she wore a bck, sleeved cloak with the hood down. Her hands were covered in thin, fingerless gloves. Dark braces that matched her armor peaked out from under the cloak. Whatever weapons she used were hidden by her cloak.
Their party had come prepared as well. Lilit loved her new svartalfar armor. She was getting used to the slight addition in weight, but she didn’t feel like it was going to affect her performance enough to matter. Her mace was hooked in the metal ring off her belt, and the prayer book sat in its pouch on the opposite hip.
Rana was in her new armor from the dungeon. The thicker leather creaking as she moved. It covered her from shoulders to mid-thigh in ptes of thick leather and brass studs. She didn’t have true pauldrons, but there were wing-like shoulder pads that reached the end of her shoulders with a little overhang. She wore thin leather pants underneath, and over her shins and up to her knees she had her new greaves. Her axes hung from her hips and her quarterstaff was secured to her back.
Awenda made quite the impression with her red and gold half pte armor. Her breastpte was cquered a deep crimson with gold accents along the edges. Gold pted pauldrons hung down to her elbows. Her bracers and greaves were in the same style as her breastpte. Underneath it all and connecting pieces at the joints ran fine chainmail. She clinked and cnked as she walked. There would be zero stealth on her part moving forward.
Izumi was in the least eborate or ostentatious outfit of everyone. Though hers were arguably the toughest ones. She had on a set of pin jade green robes that reached down to her ankles. She didn’t wear bracers, greaves, gloves, or anything else. But, her robes had been enchanted to withstand a lot. The shopkeeper had apparently impressed her and Rana both by demonstrating directly on her armor with several daggers and even a crossbow bolt fired from across the store. Nothing had penetrated the armor, though the shopkeeper had warned that the actual blunt force from all the attacks would still bleed though. So, she couldn’t be cut, stabbed, or shot by most weapons, but she’d still end up needing healing from all the bruises and possible broken bones that would make it through her enchantments. Her enchantments didn’t offer any offensive support, but she was happy with her robes nonetheless.
Lilit and her party stopped in front of their prospective members. “You ready?” she asked. Fiadh wouldn’t make eye contact, but nodded her head.
Soon-Bok smiled from ear to ear, “You bet! Let’s go.” She stretched the st word into several sylbles.
Awenda led them to the first open training room. Rana, with the most gold, volunteered to pay for the room for the next hour. She didn’t give anyone else a chance to say anything before she picked their first monsters. Though, Lilit had seen her slide one of the sliders pretty far, so she suspected whatever was coming out was going to be quite the mob.
“First up, let’s see how you each do on your own. Izumi and Awenda are going to tank the mob and each of you is going to work on whittling down their numbers. Soon-Bok, you’re with Izumi. Fiadh, you’re with Awenda.” Lilit announced as the lights in the room began to dim.
They’d discussed this all this morning before leaving the room. They wanted to give the girls several different types of enemies to fight to see how they’d do before integrating them into team drills. Izumi had talked them into using their final amount of time together to have both women work with the team at the same time. Rana and Awenda had wanted to indulge her, so Lilit agreed.
The spotlights shone on the back of the room as the wall split with a grinding groan. Out of the opening hopped a hoard of about twenty bullywugs. Bullywug Lvl 2 hanging over their heads. Guess they were starting off a little easy. Though it’s not like any of the avaible monsters in the training room were that difficult.
Izumi summoned Bob at the same time Awenda stepped forward. They waited until all the bullywugs hopped all the way into the room before they rushed forward and began kiting the mob in two different directions.
Awenda cleaved an entire bullywug in half and let out a roar. Most of the mob ran at her. Then Bob flickered behind the group and began sshing heavily into a pair of bullywugs. This peeled off roughly half of the mob from the rear, separating them in opposite directions.
Soon-Bok stalked around the back of Bob’s group. “This would be even easier in terrain where I can hide and leap out from. But this will still be fun!” she called out as she lunged forward, piercing a bullywug in the back with a long dagger. The bullywug arched backward in obvious pain, but didn’t make a sound. It was dead before it finished crumpling on the ground.
“Hehe! Stabs to the kidney are very painful. Sometimes so much so that they can’t make a single sound before they expire.” She giggled while skipping off to her next target. This one she sshed behind the knees, causing him to colpse like his strings were cut before Soon-Bok stabbed him in the neck. She grinned through the sptter of blood across her face. From there she seemed to flicker simirly to Bob as she suddenly appeared on the other side of the mob and began dancing her way through more bullywugs, a smile spshed across her blood spttered face.
Lilit looked around at the others. Soon-Bok was more than just a little scary. Rana was busy staring at Fiadh, so Lilit turned to take a look.
Fiadh wasn’t what Lilit exactly expected from a mage. She could already see that she was going to end up needing robes with simir enchantments to Izumi’s. About every ten seconds she bsted someone with a spell. It alternated between a shadowy missile that left smoking holes in bodies and a sparking ball of electricity that cooked its target before branching out and shocking two to three others nearby. In between her magical bsts she twirled her staff around and beat bullywugs like it was a long club. Her face was set in a neutral mask that gave away nothing.
Both women carved through the bullywugs like a hot knife through butter. It was no time at all before both women were left panting, the bodies of their sin victims disappearing before them. They both also pulled blue potion bottles out of their pockets to chug while they waited for their breathing to come back under control.
“Well, that was interesting.” Lilit looked around at the others. Izumi’s eyes were a little wide, but the smile on her face stretched from ear to ear. Awenda was being stoic, but she’d had the least opportunities to observe both women. Rana looked as shook as Lilit felt.
“Ok. Rana, let’s dial it back a little bit and have only Bob tank. We’ll start with Soon-Bok so Awenda gets a chance to see her in action. Then we can try as a group.” Lili looked around the group, “Sound good?”
The others including Soon-Bok and Fiadh nodded in agreement. Rana pulled her delver back up and with a smirk tapped a few buttons and let her arm fall to her side. She chuckled quietly as the wall at the back of the room lit up and began to split again. Out of it poured a half a dozen skeletons Skeletal Warrior Lvl 1 above their heads. Lilit approved. It would be good to know if Soon-Bok could adjust to the new kind of enemy. Fiadh’s fighting style already lent itself to blunt damage, though Lilit was curious about how the electricity would py out.
Soon-Bok grinned excitedly while sheathing her dagger. She unclipped a pair of short rods from her belt. She flicked them out and they extended to nearly two feet long with a short, thick bulb of metal gleaming at the tip.
She barely waited for Bob to draw the mob of skeletons to itself before she dove into the crowd of bones from the side. She was a whirlwind of breaking bones and snapping joints as she sang a catchy tune about a lesbian hunter. She dipped and dodged blows from skeletons from all sides as she quickly began leaving heaps of them on the ground.
Soon-Bok didn’t defeat any of them outright, but she very quickly had all six skeletons on the ground missing one or both legs. The next minute was her jumping around, smashing skeleton skulls like a she was pying hopscotch.
Lilit wasn’t sure how well she’d hold up against higher level monsters, or the more aggressive ones they’d encountered in the dungeons themselves, but Soon-Bok could definitely hold her own. Even if her smile and ughter while she sughtered monsters was a little off-putting.
When it was Fiadh’s turn she wasn’t nearly as fast as Soon-Bok. She also wasn’t half as creepy. Fiadh moved with little grace as she flung spells and her staff. As Lilit predicted, the electrical ball spell wasn’t very effective against skeletons. The shadowy missile though was quite effective as it exploded skeletons into rge chunks. Fiadh adapted to the situation and instead of wasting the electrical spells, she just focused on the shadowy missiles and her staff. It did raise the time between spells to closer to twenty seconds in between. That seemed to indicate there was a twenty second cooldown for her individual spells. That wouldn’t be a problem as long as they took it into account during a fight.
It only took a few minutes for Fiadh to mow down her mob. She once again chugged a bright blue potion. Mana regeneration. It made Lilit wonder about both women’s stats. She only remembered seeing Fiadh throw a handful of spells, and she already needed a potion. Simirly, Soon-Bok had only done one skill that would have used mana that Lilit had seen, but needed to chug a potion. It worried her a little.
While Fiadh’s problem might be partially because of her smaller mana pool at level one, Soon-Bok’s problem seemed much worse. Unless that spell was truly a mana dump, she had a tiny mana pool and would need help raising it if she was going to be the most effective rogue archetype. The teleportation could come in handy in so many situations.
Awenda wandered over to Lilit, soon followed by Rana and Izumi. Fiadh and Soon-Bok gave them space to talk. Soon-Bok was talking excitedly with Fiadh. Well, she was doing enough talking for both of them from what she could tell, which probably worked out well for both of them honestly.
“What do you guys think?” Izumi asked right away.
“They’re both really good. I’d venture that if we can level up Fiadh she’s going to be nigh unstoppable.” Lilit said. The others nodded their heads. “And, honestly her being quiet isn’t that much of a problem. She still communicates pretty quickly with the Delver.”
“So you’re leaning toward Fiadh?” Rana asked.
“I mean I guess so. Soon-Bok is just…a little creepy and unnerving. The smiling and giggling while covered in blood and viscera was a little much.”
“I don’t know. She’s also very skilled. She mowed down those skeletons way faster and more efficiently than Fiadh did,” Rana argued.
“Sure…but she’s creepy,” Lilit returned.
“I don’t know. I find her upbeat personality and happy demeanor kind of charming,” Awenda ventured. Lilit stared at her like she’d grown a second head.
“That was more than just a ‘happy demeanor.’” Lilit deadpanned. “That’s psychotic.”
“We could always just ask her to tone it down some,” Izumi said. “Besides, I’m with Awenda. Maybe she can bance out the sourpuss on the team,” she looked Lilit dead in the eye.
“I am not a sourpuss, you horny little—”
“Lilit!” Awenda interrupted. “Please don’t finish that. Izumi, there’s no need to pick fights.”
Lilit turned away from the group so she could get a handle on her emotions. Izumi just seemed to know exactly how to push her buttons. The realization did nothing to soothe her soul.
“I like the idea of keeping both girls,” Izumi chimed in. “There’s no rule about how rge a party can get to that I found. Just a minimum of three.”
Lilit was once again blindsided when the other two looked interested in the idea when she whirled around. They had agreed to one. One extra person on the team. And she was supposed to be ok with them dating said person. Now she was supposed to double that level of discomfort.
“Can we please just pick one? One was hard enough for me to be ok with.” Lilit pleaded.
“This was your idea!” Izumi yelled.
“Finding one person for the team was my idea, not finding as many people to fill out your harem as we can,” Lilit bit back with a grimace.
“Ok. Let’s take a break you two,” Awenda stepped between them.
“Yeah. There’s no reason to get nasty. We’re all friends here,” Rana added.
Lilit turned her back to all of them, her arms crossed over her chest. She didn’t need to take a break. She needed everyone to stop changing the rules every time she turned around. She needed time to get used to this whole situation between all of them, let alone bringing in someone else. The st she wouldn’t get because of the countdown on their dungeon delving. Seven days wasn’t a long enough time to wrap her head around what felt like an ever changing ndscape of her retionships.
Lilit felt herself get wrapped in a pair of strong arms. She grabbed hold of them for support. Looking down, she was surprised to find the soft fur of Rana under her hands.
“Hey, we know this is a lot. Don’t think about the retionship stuff. That can come when or if it happens. If you were making a party, would you really not pick both of those women to fight by your side? They each have their own strengths, and they’d both help shore up our weaknesses.” Rana whispered close to her ear. It sent shivers down Lilit’s spine that she tried her best to hide.
Lilit let out a quiet huff. She knew when she’d been out maneuvered. “Yeah. If I was just worried about the party I would want them both.”
Lilit was surprised when she felt Rana pce an excited kiss on the side of her neck. There was no way she could have hid that shiver. And Rana’s little chuckle let her know she noticed.
“Thank you. We can do a trial run or two in here before we make the final decision, but I think this is the right way to go,” Rana continued to whisper. Lilit just nodded her head in agreement.
