Being a Summoner on our Evolved Earth

(55)

Lucia stepped through the cursed door seal without hesitation and started to speed walk through the halls. The creatures in this dungeon resembled little mud golems that barely reached her knee. They were slow and bulky. Lucia only attacked the ones that blocked her path by kicking them out of the way as she continued to navigate the halls. 

'I've been holding myself back by believing I can't achieve anything on my own again. I lost my confidence to do things on my own. I need to show myself what I am capable of.' Lucia thought as she ran forward.

Strangely enough, the path from the entrance to the boss arena in this dungeon was the same as her own. The difference was that this boss room was not an arena with lattice gates, but a stone valley with a pond in the center. Lucia entered the room without pause as she pulled out her quarterstaff. A large mud golem that reached eight feet tall with four arms started to rise up from the mud around the pond. Lucia analyzed the creature briefly before running at it and striking with her quarterstaff through its right chest before it fully formed. 

A small earth crystal core popped out the back after being dislodged by Lucia's staff. Lucia stepped around the collapsing mud golem to grab the earth crystal. A treasure chest appeared in front of her, and the water drained from the pond to reveal a set of stairs going down. Lucia opened the chest to find three potions and a note. The note described the potions. The red potion was an small explosion potion, the yellow potion was a food supplement to replace a days worth of meals,  and the blue potion was for curing weak poisons. Lucia stuffed all of it into her space and started her descent down the stairs. She maintained a quick pace just short of running as she descended the stairs three steps at a time. About twenty stairs from the bottom, she jumped down the center and landed at the bottom with a splash. 

The floor was covered in about four inches of dark water. Lucia kept out her quarterstaff as she started into the first hallway. She used her quarter staff to check for pit falls hidden under the water. In the first room she reached, it had frogs with bright colored spots or stripes waiting for her on top of large lily pads. They were about as large as her forearm, and their tongue strikes were swift. Lucia deflected their tongues with her quarterstaff and shot a [Magic Missile] at one of the frogs to see the extent of damage she could achieve with her weakest spell. The frog was still recovering its tongue and was slow to dodge as the shot landed on its side. The impact sent the frog rolling into the water. 

"Hmmm..." Lucia felt troubled. 'There is no way that strike killed it, so now I have an opponent in the water that I can't see. How annoying.'

Lucia trudged through the water to the other frog that was sitting on the lily pad still striking her with its tongue. Lucia easily deflected each hit until she was in range. Then using her quarterstaff like a bat, she swung and hit the frog when it was recovering from another failed tongue attack. It was sent flying onto the wall with a pained croak before going splat. It's corpse slowly slid down into the water. Lucia still hadn't found a way to track that other tier 3 frog, so she decided to leave it be and continue forward. That was when she felt something brush against her leg and she quickly swung down with her staff in the direction it was moving. There was a large splash, and Lucia managed to drench herself, but no sign of what brushed against her. Just in case, Lucia raised her leg out of the water to look at it. As she had guessed, the spot that was touched had a faint purple bruise that seemed to be spreading into her veins.

Lucia cast [Cleanse] on herself and watched the purple bruise disappear completely in the blink of an eye. Lucia continued to walk through the water filled hallways while checking for pit falls. Any other frogs she came across were dealt with by smashing them with her quarterstaff. Some frogs would try to leap into the water if her timing was off, and she would finish them with a quick [Mana Slash]. She focused on gathering mana while she was moving through the hallways to recover from the frequent usage of a high cost skill like [Mana Slash]. Soon she found a room that made her groan. It was the arena type boss room from her dungeon, except instead of sand and rocks, this one was filled with water and lily pads. Thanks to her high mana regen she had kept her mana levels over 75% full.