It was a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, neither the Chief nor any of my family wanted the group we had trained to raid the dungeon to come to harm. After working closely with them for over a month, first in an attempt to contain the burned land, and then during the dedicated training we had given them, we had all grown close in different ways. On the other hand, we were fully aware that we were sending them into danger, and they needed all the preparation, confidence, and experience, both practical and in the form of EXP, that they could obtain. That dichotomy gave rise to the question: would we provide them with any support on their path to the dungeon, and if so, what form would that support take?

The two extremes, no support, forcing them to fight their way through the burned area before delving into the dungeon all on their own, and a full and complete escort to clear the way for them, set up camp next to the dungeon’s entrance and maybe tuck them into bed were both discarded as unsuitable. A compromise was needed, a middle ground between those two.

We all discussed it for a bit, all of us proposing slightly different methods and degrees of involvement, and ultimately, we came to an agreement. The group who were supposed to enter the dungeon would do the fighting, take the risks and reap the EXP-rewards, while another group, centered around Luna and me, would follow after them, watching their backs to intervene in an absolute emergency, set up shelter around the dungeon’s entrance and make sure the dungeon group was ready when they headed in. It was a compromise, but one everyone could easily live with.

Watching through multiple scrying constructs in the air and through the eyes of those involved in the raid was fascinating in its own right. Part of it was due to the, for lack of a better word, intimacy of the experience. Watching through their eyes, especially if I tapped the stream of information directly and didn’t use a Water Mirror to display it, made it even worse, making me feel as if I was directly involved in the action. Involved and unable to influence it, which was deeply uncomfortable to experience. A part of me insisted the things I was seeing were real and happening to me, trying to make my body react and defend, especially if the people involved acted in ways I would not.

Sadly, the Bitumen didn’t demonstrate any new intelligence or tactics, just the usual fare of goop, fire and resilience that made them such an annoyance to fight. Luckily, the fivesome chosen to delve into the dungeon had made destroying Bitumen and similar creatures their bread and butter, learning to do so incredibly efficiently. By now, they might actually be better at it than I was, simply because they had spent so much time honing their skills, allowing their experience to compensate for the power difference between us, at least on a small scale.

And they got to demonstrate that experience repeatedly, against what felt like an ever-increasing number of Bitumen, until they finally ran into something different, something other than endless Bitumen. One of the artillery beasts, though a smaller variant, was blocking their path.

Just like its brethren, it had four pillar-like legs holding up a central body, though the body of this one was fairly small, comparatively speaking. Still the size of a car, but given that each of the legs was a little over a metre in diameter, maybe a metre and a half, the body was almost comically small, just a little bigger than each individual leg. The thing’s head, as I had come to call the protrusion opposite of the launchable tail, was a little larger than normal, but its eye-like structure looked just like it usually did. Nothing too far out of the ordinary, though I was curious how the delving group would deal with it. While I was fairly certain they had already encountered similar foes, I hadn’t been able to observe a battle against one of them just yet.

Watching them, especially when using the different perspectives provided to me by my scrying constructs in addition to their senses, was incredibly fascinating. They demonstrated a few techniques I hadn’t seen before, using a slightly odd combination of magical and martial techniques to great effect. These techniques allowed them to slice at a distance, the attack being transmitted as a blade of energy afterwards. I might have to take a much closer look at this sort of technique, just to see what I could do with it and what I might be able to develop using it as a foundation, but that was for later.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

For now, I observed their battle, and I was quite impressed with what I was seeing. For a group who had primarily been hunters, with a bit of gathering and the odd fight for survival thrown in, these people were fighting incredibly well. The Chief’s training and later Lia’s lessons had turned them into a force to be reckoned with.

They systematically destroyed the artillery beast. First, one of them managed to get its attention by sending multiple attacks against the big, glowing eye on its head. While I still wasn’t sure if the thing was actually vital in some way or just a red herring, it served well enough here, and the thing tried to stomp the guy flat, its relatively long limbs striking the ground hard enough to crack the burned earth.

The only problem with that was that the guy who had attacked didn’t hang around. Instead, he was carefully keeping his distance, only sending an occasional attack at the eye, giving his allies all the time in the world to get into the right positions and execute a simultaneous attack.

Once again, a series of glowing blades of power was launched through the air, striking the front limbs of the artillery beast in perfect unison, coming from opposite sides in a stunning display of accuracy and coordination. Two blades struck each limb, and while I doubted a singular attack, or even a twinned attack on the same spot, would have been sufficient, attacks coming from opposite sides proved to be enough and severed the limbs, causing them to lose cohesion and completely disrupting the thing's balance.

Which provided the original attacker, the one who had lured it into position, all the time he needed to charge forward, avoiding some of the burning goop on the ground until he was close enough to leap upwards, onto the beast’s head and back. There, he once again demonstrated impressive agility and kept his feet despite the beast’s movement until he reached the right spot, though I had no idea how he recognised it, and stabbed down, his blade easily entering the beast’s back.

While there was no spine to sever, the beast’s reaction was enough to confirm that the guy had managed to identify and strike the beast’s core, causing it to spread into a pile of burning goop while its attacker still managed to keep his feet beneath him as he rode down the collapsing beast’s form, somehow landing on somewhat solid ground with nary a scratch. Some burned fingers, maybe, but not a scratch on any of them.

“Impressive,” I couldn’t help but mutter, a sentiment echoed by those around me who had been able to observe the battle.

“Those flying blades are the reason why they didn’t accept the enhancement ritual you offered them,” Luna told me, making me nod in understanding. It made sense that they wouldn’t want to have their ability to attack at a distance restricted, though I had to wonder if the ritual wouldn’t have been advantageous to one or two of them, even with its restrictions.

“Do you know how those attacks work?” I had to ask, curious if the locals had discussed these techniques with her, as I was now seeing them for the first time.

“Not really, no,” Luna admitted, “Just that they are fairly strenuous on them and they can’t use them too often, at least not when striking seriously.”

“Mhm,” I signalled my understanding, even as I wished Lia were here and able to explain. Sadly, she had decided to stay behind, as we were moving in during the day. The risk of exposure to the sun weakening her in a critical moment was just a little too high for us to accept, so I would have to wait until I could interview her regarding these new tricks.

“Let’s continue onwards; I want to take a look at the destroyed beast and see if it has some interesting parts to it. Especially the destroyed core or its fragments would be fascinating, but they didn’t even try to dig it out,” I complained, getting my smaller group back on track and moving behind the primary group. Hopefully, the rest of this operation will continue to go this well.