Ebony's Fable

The archer leaped right over staring the stone mage down from above, taller than Ebony and slightly taller than Hector. He had a long face with an angular chin. They were all clean shaven, Ebony never grew facial hair so he had the luck of not needing to shave.

The archer’s most eye-catching feature was his unnaturally long arms. His hands could almost touch his knees when he stood straight with his arms by his side.

He had a dark colour scheme chainmail over leather armour, his bow looked impressive. Ebony had not seen such a large and heavy looking bow before. It was almost as tall as the archer himself and the thickest part was as thick as his arm.

Two quivers of arrows on his back were long and had a larger opening for ease of drawing an arrow that long. The arrows looked metallic, all of them. A curved dagger was on the back of his hips.

Despite all of Ebony’s practice, he hated sheathing and unsheathing his greatsword. It didn’t have the halfway slit or whatever to make it easier. Being so bulky Ebony was beginning to think he needed another method of drawing his greatsword.

The archer had a mean glare but the stone mage didn’t back down from the intimidation.

“Have a go? No need. If every one of you can take even a single shot from me, I’ll eat my words and babysit y’all.” The archer ridiculed but then he looked at Hector, his brow raised. When he looked at Ebony he frowned so hard his brows were about to meet. His jaw was about to drop when he saw Scarlet, appearing to want to say something else but holding himself back. Perhaps, the stone mage's level and attitude barely met his expectations. While Ebony and Scarlet’s level was too low for him to accept as a party member.

Ebony forgot that the archer was already aware of their level. The archer just Identified them again since he only cared about their level at first. Not expecting anyone with a rare Class from this backwater town turned city.

“Haughty much?” Hector scoffed.

The other three didn’t bother commenting. Challenge accepted.

The contenders stood a distance away, roughly half the space they had. The no longer shy stone mage was up first.

“Hey hey don’t you think his character changed real quick.” Hector poked Ebony’s side. He took off his gauntlet for a tet, the hand for the lower party. He apparently acknowledged the 2 of them as his betters or seniors. He just high fived Ebony saying there was no need to be so stiff.

A chill went down Hector’s back when he tried to do the same with Scarlet. His instincts told him to stop whatever he was doing and his hands and fingers concurred. The temperature seemed to have lowered as Hector stiffened up but he looked around to find nothing wrong.

“Mmm. Personal grudge maybe?” Ebony said. The archer didn’t recognise the mage though so it may not be right.

The archer drew his arrow and pulled back, charging or aiming. He didn’t take the shot immediately. The bow was so long, the archer wouldn’t have been able to fully draw it if it weren’t for his unnaturally long arms.

“A power archer, there aren’t many of those around. With his attitude he is probably some noble with an archer type lineage.” Hector commented. Scarlet even nodded but didn’t look away from the archer and mage. Ebony had no idea what a power archer was but it was obvious enough from the name.

‘Hmm? Why did he say power archer? The huge bow?’ A passing thought hit Ebony. The people of this world seemed to be pretty good at guessing other’s skillset. It was probably just a natural day to day thing to do that became part of their culture. Ebony should learn to judge these things too, it’ll make Ebony better at grasping information about his opponent.

His knowledge on all things Class, skills, stats and fortification needed a lot of brushing up for it to be any use. He also needed to gain the habit of guessing what others can do but it just seems like too much trouble. Ebony wasn’t the type to think too much in battle either. He was more the go with the flow, act first, think later type. Except when he just teleported or whatever magic brought him here.

2 hands about 5 to 6 times bigger than a human’s was formed from stone and floated in front of the stone mage.

Ebony frowned inwardly, there was no change in his expression but he noticed the mana in the surroundings was quickly thinning out. Getting drained towards the archer or rather his metal arrow.

“He’s draining the mana in the atmosphere… and aiming for his neck.” Ebony felt like he needed to add on. It was too late to do anything about it as the arrogant archer let the bowstring and arrow loose.

Ebony believed that he saw a layer of white cloud or mist form in the arrow’s path as a strong gust of wind hit them. He didn’t even manage to see the shadow of the arrow. They saw the stone mage getting pushed off his feet and sent flying a long way back as the arrow appeared where it was stopped.

One of the stone hands was placed in the arrow’s trajectory while the other was behind it grabbing on the end of the arrow as the first was completely pierced and had a large hole in it. The scrawny stone mage’s actual hands were also covered in stone as he was gripping the arrow head and shaft. He was unmoving as he looked down to the ground. He dropped his staff to catch the arrow right at the point of impact.

Blood dripped onto the dirt ground. The field appeared silent despite many other battles going on around them.

The sound of something shattering echoed loudly as the mage stared back at the archer. His hands were dripping blood but his body was unharmed other than the dent in the neck area of his stone suit. Ebony saw that the metal arrow head and even shaft was crushed into tiny pieces. No one managed to see how he crushed a thick metal arrow though.

“Hmph. Passable.” The remark went through deaf ears.

“Haha! I’m next!” Hector was rubbing his hands together as if excited instead of worried after watching the shot.

Hector took the same spot. He got into a wide stance with his right arm pulled back after smashing his fist together. His skin visibly darkened in tone, then it got redder as if he was placed in a sauna. He was literally steaming after that with steam rising from under his armour and clothes, his bright pink hair standing up. Then the steam around him billowed and settled down.

‘Hair standing obviously means he’s powered up right?’ Ebony applied common sense.

Hector punched out as he saw the bowstring slip from the archer’s fingers. Ebony was watching Hector instead of the archer this time. He thought he saw Hector punch out many times in that split second, the air in front of it appeared to compress as he lashed out.

“SUPERRR PAAANCH!” Hector screamed. He took a step forward with his punch landing on the tip of the metal arrowhead. That might not have been right as the arrow didn’t even touch Hector’s gauntlets. No one noticed at the high speeds of the exchange. Scarlet might have been able to if she didn’t stand as far away as they did.

Ebony moved forward in front of Scarlet reflexively. The impact directly demolished the metal arrow into splinters and sharp fragments. They stabbed into the ground and were blown in every direction from the force of the impact.

The stone mage got his suit up to cover his face in time as the fragments peppered off of him. Ebony blocked those that were sent his and Scarlet’s way. She was half way through bringing her mantle to cover herself though. She was a little stunned for not reacting before Ebony and thanked Ebony after she realised he covered her.

Hector burst out into laughter, completely unharmed.

“How was that? Jerk.” The question pissed the archer off but at least he meant what he said about eating his words. Hector did cross the 20 level gap.

Ebony heard a beating or thumping sound. He knew it was Scarlet’s broken skill at work. Some kind of body enhancement that pushes her physical stats to unreasonable levels. Without a single drop of mana, it was ridiculous. Though it was easy to tell her breathing and heart rate increased a lot and she gets exhausted easily using it.

Things got really dangerous when steam rose from under her mantle and clothes. For both of them. Thankfully, Scarlet had enough self control to stop the spar whenever that happened.

Scarlet walked up but the archer didn’t draw his arrow. His facial expression was like someone trying to bite down a bullet.

“Miss. I meant no offence earlier. We don…” the archer spoke up before being cut off by Scarlet.

“Shut up. Shoot.” Scarlet commanded. The archer gulped, not even doubting for a second that his level advantage meant little.

‘Even an arrogant guy like him is afraid of Scarlet? No, afraid of the Xengs. The Xengs really hammered fear and respect into the people of Elcra.’

Despite that, he didn’t hold back, the mana in the area was mostly sucked up dry by now. Well, he cowered out and shifted his aim to Scarlet’s shoulder. Only pissing her off more, to her the act was the same as looking down on her. Her opinion of the archer dropped further.

Scarlet didn’t even draw her twin swords until he fired his shot.

Her longsword flashed and returned to their scabbard just as quick. They heard the impact and saw 2 long sticks rebounding and landing on the ground. Hector whistled while the stone mage who uncovered his head again literally had his jaw drop.

The arrow was sliced in half and was almost half melted. Fortunately for the party behind Scarlet, they were slinging magic around and got their barriers up.

Ebony got confused when Hector who was standing behind him started bowing to the seats and other parties who were duelling each other. It was in his new 360 directional senses and he didn’t see it directly since Hector was behind him but he assumed there was someone watching them from the seats that Hector knew.

“Hey hey hey, you’re really going up there? You’re almost 40 levels apart!” Hector asked and pulled Ebony back. Even the scrawny boy looked concerned. Clearly neither of them thought too highly of him unlike the blind confidence they had that Scarlet could deal with it.

“You didn’t ask her that.” Ebony looked towards Scarlet as he replied.

“That’s…” Hector had his tongue tied. Ebony passed Scarlet by and casted the full 5 Layered Ice Carapace taking a bit more than a second to cast.

Like how he can compress Icebody Enhancement. He can instantly cast compressed spells up to the same degree. 30% or so of his limit. His mana being twice as compressible made things a lot easier. Practically his entire mana pool was drained as he pushed his regenerated sum into it.

Did he need to? Maybe not, but just to be on the safe side. The archer was taking his own sweet time too. Perhaps because there was not much mana in the atmosphere for him to drain.

“You’re not going to stop them?”

“What for?”

“What for? Wha.” the voice not managing to finish his sentence.

The shot fired as they heard a screeching of metal before a familiar rebounding of the metal arrow.

“How…” the archer whispered to himself. Either no one heard him or no one cared.

There was a deep gorge where the arrow scraped by his shield. The curve of the turtle shell shield redirected the arrow. It was only made of a little more than 3000 mana so roughly one-third of the maximum amount of mana and strength that it can reach.

The archer held back more, not fully drawing his bow and didn’t waste his own mana into his shot. Perhaps, going easy on someone so far below his level. Not wanting to kill Ebony or the shots take more stamina and mana than he thought. Still Ebony was pretty impressed by the damage capability of the shot if at full power.

They didn’t bother sparing with the archer since they saw what he could do already. There was little point in wasting more time. Hector came out victorious over the now shy again stone mage. Scarlet and Ebony didn’t spar again since they had long been sparring with each other.

“You can call me Hector! Nice ta meetcha. The party seems plenty strong despite the level gap. Vanguard offensive fighter.” the energetic fighter introduced.

“I’m Tuffock Tile. Tuffock is fine. Specialise in offensive stone magic. I’m a doctor too.” The stone spear he sent firing off was pretty impressive compared to his defensive capability.

He was even the team medic. Most teams would get a first aider profession at best, a doctor was more uncommon. Hoping for a healer would merely be a dream, even the city healer hasn’t arrived after being dispatched many weeks back.

“Ebony. Vanguard with some ranged capability. Forte is… toughness.” Ebony simply introduced. If he really had to point out a forte it would be toughness or having a defensive role.

“Scarlet. Vanguard. Speed. Chef.” Scarlet’s introduction was even simpler.

“...My name is Ryley Vigoureed. Heavy archer and scout. I take my earlier words back. Even so, this party has no balance at all. We don’t have enough firepower.” Ryley carried himself with pride even after his failed attempts at getting out of the party.

He was not wrong though. With 3 of them mainly close ranged fighters, Ebony doesn’t see Hector having any ranged spells despite being a quadra elemental mage. Though he could just not have used them in the duels.

Scarlet and Ebony himself preferred close range battles even though both had some ranged spells. Essentially, they had 3 hybrid classes that didn't specialise in the normal roles of a tanker, damage dealer etc.

“We have plenty of firepower. Ebony with that tough ass shield can help take the front. Scarlet and I should be plenty to keep any monster’s off of you 2 while you fire away.” Hector gave his opinion. He was genuinely impressed by the toughness of Ebony’s shield. The spell was constructed pretty speedily for something so massive as well.

“Wi..with Ebony and mi.miss Scarlet’s strength we can easily let them take higher level monsters on themselves and they’ll close the level gap quickly. We should be able to go pretty far once they hit 70.” Tuffock said. The tough facade he had on disappeared.

“We still don’t know the relative strength of the dungeon.” Ryley said.

“A fresh dungeon usually has the first floor to consist of monsters found in the nearby places of where it forms. I bet there won’t be any above 50.” Hector was more well informed than Ebony gave the man credit for.

“Th..they reported the dungeon to be on the lower end of a large dungeon range. It’s just an estimate but it shouldn’t be too far off. That means there are at least 21 floors, there should easily be lots of monsters since the dungeon is newborn.” Tuffock said.

Small dungeons are roughly 5 to 10 floors. Medium ones have 11 to 20. Large has 21 to 50. Very large dungeons are up till a 100. The estimated range the Quest Hall publishes is just a rough gauge calculated somehow or another. Something about how much mana or the range of surroundings that the dungeon absorbs mana from.

Dungeons are said to be living and there have been many who researched dungeons all their life. There are many different types but some behavioural patterns of dungeons have been studied. Like how new dungeons tend to spawn lots of monsters. Some theories are that the dungeon does so to experiment and understand itself and its environment or invaders.

“We are aiming to clear it. Agreed?” Ryley's attitude about the party changed drastically. Mostly because of Scarlet’s presence and how he didn’t manage to break a spell of someone almost 40 levels under him. Holding back or not. He only identified them afterwards, only the puny stone mage didn’t seem special but he was a doctor. Pretty lucky to have one in the party.

He wasn’t trying to kill Ebony and didn’t use his own mana so the shot was weakened but it was still unexpected to be blocked without even causing much damage to a quickly conjured shield. A conjurer, talented but nothing too special. Ex-mana slave.

As a noble, he knew that something was up. A young mana slave when mana slavery have been banned for many decades was only trouble. Still, the reason why hybrids were not looked well upon for humans was that they didn’t have a racial advantage over the others, like higher physical or magical capability. A mana slave or meditator class completely bridges the disadvantage.

Then the completely unheard of quadra elemental mage. The weird noisy man didn’t even use a spell to destroy his heavy steel arrow. Another hybrid. One with explosive power.

The Xeng. Hybrid or not didn’t matter. Being on the same party as a Xeng? His ‘grandson of a viscount’ status means nothing in front of her. If they manage to clear the dungeon and establish themselves as a bonafide dungeon clearer party, his fame and status will shoot through the roof.

It wouldn’t be impossible for his family to give their all to groom him into the next viscount if he really managed to ride on a Xeng’s coattail.

Ryley might be foolish but he was still educated enough to know the benefits. His pride can be put aside for now, he’ll let them know who’s the boss sooner or later. It was the only reason he apologised.

The pesky stone mage though. He’ll have to knock him down a peg or two when he gets the chance. First, he needs to change his image or at least not destroy it any further. Getting on the good side of the Xeng woman is his first priority.

“Mmm.” Ebony replied with his monotonous nod.

“HAHA! Course we are!” Hector pumped his fist.

“Ye.yeah!...” Tuffock tightened the grip on his staff as his voice trailed off. He really was acting weird, it was as if his earlier outrage was from a different person. He wasn’t even looking angrily at Ryley or anything like that.

“Don’t hold us back.” Scarlet said to no one in particular. Who the ‘us’ was referring to was also unknown.

“Great. Now roles. I propose as the highest level and eldest to be the party leader…” Ryley only glanced at Scarlet as he said this. He actually wanted to give the role to her, to bootlick. Then he remembered the Xengs almost never do anything they consider ‘bothersome’ and he should carry himself with confidence instead.

“Heh.” Hector crossed his arm as he looked at Ryley but didn’t say anything more.

As expected no one disagreed. Ryley was right that Scarlet couldn’t be bothered. Ebony felt the same, he was no leader and he was the lowest level as well. He didn’t like such roles either. Tuffock was just looking at his feet.

“That’s that. Ta. Taf-frog will be our rearguard firepower and doctor. Ebony can take the front most vanguard and give range support where possible. Hector and Scarlet will be the side vanguard. I’ll be the scout and rear firepower as well. Our personal equipment and supplies are individual responsibilities. Scarlet, can I assume you’ll take care of our food?” Ryley delegated. Whether he mispronounced Tuffock’s name on purpose was up to debate.

“It’s Tuffock! Get it right or do I have to make it right, huh?” Tuffock slammed a fist into an open palm which his stone hands copied. His expression of shyness turned to one of rage and annoyance before turning meek again and picking his staff back up.

‘Bi-polar maybe?’ Ebony thought. It might be troublesome to deal with the sudden changes in personality but it sure was interesting to see.

“Yes. Carry food around as well. Dungeon monsters are spawned meat, toxic to the body.” Scarlet replied with the longest sentence she said so far, completely ignoring the shoutout. Food seems to be what she talked most about other than fighting.

It was news to Ebony and apparently, even Ryley and Tuffock were surprised that dungeon monsters were toxic. It was more common than not that people ate the monsters in the dungeon as it was a precious source of food. What other sources of food were there in the dungeons?

“I can do minor equipment maintenance. The workmanship is poor and only physical works without magical properties though.” Ebony felt like he should contribute a little more. He did need to start mending his poor robes. He actually didn’t dare to mess around with good quality stuff that has magical effects in them.

The party was a little stunned by his words.

“Wait really?” Hector asked. Ebony didn’t think it would garner so much attention.

“May I?” Instead of answering Ebony looked at Tuffock and his robes which had small cuts and a few holes here and there. It didn’t look like expensive equipment and it was cloth or fabric was a material Ebony was more familiar with.

Tuffock blankly nodded his head multiple times. He was going to take the robe off but Ebony stopped him. Pinching around the area with a cut he gently pushed his mana into the robe. It easily went in, he guided it to the cut and felt the mana not being able to move further without coming out of the robe’s material.

He used his mana to surround the cut where the fibres got disconnected. Brought them close together and weaved them in and out following the robe’s original pattern. It didn’t require more materials but the integrity of the robe itself wasn’t really repaired. He just mended the cut to look like it wasn’t there anymore. At least there weren’t loose threads this way

“Holy crap. I didn’t just see that, did I guys?” Hector rubbed his eyes. Their reactions seem exaggerated to Ebony.

“You didn’t. Our chances of going through the dungeon in a single expedition just rose.” Ryley said.

The thing about equipment was that they wear down and eventually break. Constant battles only serve to make the issue worse. The greatest reason parties have to come back out and return to the dungeon was that their equipment broke and they couldn’t go much further.

Equipment, no matter how poor, gave people a sense of security. Few dare to continue pushing with torn armour or chipped weapons.

“I’m only familiar with fabric and fibres. Never worked on weapons, metals or scales before.” Ebony made himself clear.

“That’s still pretty damn convenient.” the comment receiving nods.

“Great. Can we leave these minor maintenance to you?” Ryley asked.

“Sure.”