Mantle of the Gods

It looked like a frog.

Its name was a Cykrog, and it looked like a one-eyed frog. I remembered our fight with the Royal Frogian and hoped that this one didn’t have a stinger at the end of its tongue.

“What does this one do?” It was another one of the bosses that we hadn’t fought.

Oz started scanning the information. "The floor versions will try to ram Adventurers with their heads. Beware of the tongue, on the lesser versions it will just bind you, but against the greater version, it can pull an Adventurer into its mouth and will swallow them.” She made a face. "That would be nasty.”

“Or it could be an easy way to get to the crystal.” I pointed at the head. "If it's trying to ram you with that, then it isn’t going to have the crystal so easy to destroy.”

“Correct.” Oz scrolled a little more. "The crystal is in the chest, by the heart.” She looked at me. "Which means we’re going to have to get up next to this thing’s mouth to hit it… ugh.” She shivered.

“What about its gimmick?” I hadn’t seen the line about it, but she’d been scrolling around so fast, I’d probably missed it.

“Looks like…” Her green eyes were scanning faster than I could keep up. "Here it is! Its charging move is that it can shoot a beam of water from its eye. That doesn’t seem too bad.”

“Probably not…” I was trying to take inventory in my head and I couldn’t keep it straight. "So we need to get you all new gear and some elemental sword attacks, looks like earth-based ones since these are water monsters. I need a gun medium…” I looked down at Ether. "And Ether needs some better armor.”

Oz pointed at the other Dungeon. "Don’t you want to look at the information for this one?”

I touched the tag under the Dungeon banner. "It’s a private Dungeon, we’d have to know the person who owns it to…” I read which family had claimed ownership of the Dungeon. “Taray, see? She’s teaching team one. There’s no way that…”

“A former student of Trent’s is going to let his students use one of her personal dungeons?” Oz finished my sentence, but not like I was going to.

“Maybe…” I’d seen the effect that Trent had on his former students. So far all of them seemed to be… respectful wasn’t the right word because Celia Taray hadn’t talked like that to him, except she had in a way. She had felt comfortable enough around him to say what she wasn’t happy about and then she had asked if her solution was acceptable. At the time, I’d thought she was going to do whatever she wanted, but looking back, I was almost fully confident that if Trent had objected, she would have followed his lead.

I looked up at the turret. "That’s probably what he’s doing right now, getting permission for us to go there.” I sighed. "Might as well pull it up.”

A giant spider showed up on the screen. "This one could be difficult." Oz pointed at the description. "Hard outer shell, resistant to blades and magic.” She leaned back in her seat. "We’re going to have to get blunt weapons for this.”

“Can you use a hammer?” I knew how hard it was to use a hammer type weapon when you were used to using a blade.

“It’s not my weapon of choice, but dad made sure I could use any melee or ranged weapon.” The green-eyed woman assured me. "I can handle it. What about you?”

“I used an ax against the first floor boss of the Cathedral Dungeon. I won’t be anywhere close to as good as you, but I could handle myself, especially if the thing is resistant to magic too.” I shifted Ether as I turned sideways in the seat so that she could curl up against my chest. My arm had started going numb and she’d be more comfortable this way. “Is it resistant to all magic or is there some spell that will hurt it?”

She read for a little bit more. “The floor boss can shoot webs out of its mouth, fire is useful for clearing those away, but otherwise, not really.”

“So we need to add hammers, maces or some other type of blunt weapon to the list.” I shook my head. "Plus armor that we can move around in. And most of us need to get helmets and gloves.” I looked down at Ether’s feet. She’d shed her boots, but those were regular issue shoes that a Mundane Porter would buy. “We all need new footwear too.”

Oz looked over at Gesai, Justia, Ren, and Fray who were all looking at items.

I nodded at Aelin, who kept glancing back at them. “Do you think you could relieve Aelin. I think she wants to plan shopping more than she wants to drive.”

“Are you going to join them?” Oz eyed the white haired woman in my lap.

I leaned up against the side of the RV. "I think Ether has the right idea. It’s going to be a long road trip and we’ve got a lot of sleep to catch up on.”

Oz shook her head, but she got up and tapped Aelin on the shoulder. The blonde was beaming as she got up and rushed over to the others. I was glad to see her smile again. It’d been too long since those of us who’d been kidnapped had a reason to smile.