Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (interesting books to read TXT) 📕

the spheres shot out at the big man and Jeska, hitting them in their chests, though there didn’t seem to be any physical impact.  Instead, as soon as it hit them the sphere disappeared, and a familiar red aura surrounded them both.

“Seriously?  Your skill is a sexy dance?” Jeska asked with a shake of her head.  “And why me?  Why not Pascale or Kelty?”  Ah, now I remember his name!  Clay was sure he had heard it at some point, but he had either ignored it or forgotten the former pickpocket’s name by the time they had come back that morning.

“Yes, don’t be jealous,” the woman…Rosara, I think…replied haughtily.  “As for why you, I saw what you did in the last room when you faced off against those plants; I thought it fitting having you as a direct backup to Arcy.  Now, don’t waste my efforts, because this skill only lasts 3 minutes and has a…cooldown?...of 10 minutes, so it will be a while before I can use it again.”

Cooldown?  Is that how Hero skills work? he wondered curiously, forgetting for a moment that Dwight could hear his thoughts.

“Obviously, you should know—yes, that is how Hero skills operate,” she answered his question, the transition from confused guide to teacher relatively smooth.  “Some Classes can use their skills multiple times during a fight, as their cooldowns are short, while others – like this Support here – can only use them every 10 minutes or more, which is usually too long for the majority of fights.”

Ah, ok.  He didn’t ask any more about them because the Heroes started to move – even Pascale, who had been staring at Rosara with a stunned look on his face since she danced.  The big man stepped around a few of the hanging sheets without issue, Jeska close behind him, when he stepped on the edge of one of the webs Clay had placed around the room.

“Hold on, my boot is stuck—” he whispered as he extricated his foot from the web, but that was when two of Clay’s Spiders struck.

His 2 Jumping Spiders practically flew across the room at high speed, 1 landing on The Fighter’s back and the other on the front of his waist.  Immediately, they bit through Arcen’s (or Arcy’s?) tunic and deep into his flesh beneath, causing him to scream out in pain.  That scream was echoed, sort of, by Clay’s Shambler still hidden from view, which made the scene amusing to the Dungeon Core watching it all unfold.

It wasn’t so amusing for those in the room, however, because Kelty, Jeska, and even Rosara started screaming at the Spiders’ appearance.  Jeska was the first to react, however, as she swung her wooden stick thing at the Spider on her brother’s back…only to have it jump straight up before it was struck.  It jumped so high that it flew all the way up to the ceiling; somehow it turned itself in mid-air, landed its feet up against the surface of the ceiling, and then jumped again, aiming for the one who’d just tried to hit it.

The whole sequence of events happened so fast that Jeska didn’t have time to react, and the Spider slammed into her head, causing her to fall backwards in fright, the back of her head smacking into the floor as she fell.  Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for his Jumping Spider, the fall also caught 3 of its legs underneath, which immediately snapped from the force of the fall.

That didn’t keep it from attacking, as it started to bite her face over and over, causing vicious wounds to open up on her cheek and forehead, and it looked like one of her eyes might have been poked out.  Jeska appeared disoriented at first, as smacking her head against the floor had likely knocked her out for a second or so; however, the pain as her head got ravaged caused her to scream into the grey-colored Spider that was now doing its best to kill her.

As for the big man, he was having troubles of his own.  While the Spider on his back was dislodged with the help of his sister, the one that had landed on his front was proving troublesome.  An attempt at smacking it away with his own wooden weapon proved just as ineffective as Jeska’s efforts, as it jumped away to his front, landed gently on one of the fabric panels hanging down from the ceiling, and then jumped on his chest again.  It bit him twice in quick succession, before dodging another awkward swing by jumping off in a different direction – and then jumping right back onto him.

Are they…uh…poisonous?

“You mean venomous?  A poison takes affect by being consumed, as in ingested, inhaled, or absorbed.  By contrast, a venom takes affect by being injected, through a bite or a—you know what?  Never mind.  But no, these Spiders aren’t venomous at 1-Star, or even 2-Star ratings.”

It took a couple of seconds, but the other Heroes had finally recovered enough from the initial attack to come to their groupmates’ rescue.  The crippled Jumping Spider on Jeska’s face was knocked off by a well-aimed smack by Pascale with his own wooden weapon.  The monster tried to avoid it but couldn’t, so it ended up slamming against the nearby wall after it flew through the air; it seemed that the Spider was rather lightweight (probably due to its Air Element, the Dungeon Core reasoned), so it didn’t do too much damage to itself from the impact.

Before it could get up and try to attack again while only having 5 legs, Kelty rushed over and started to beat the crud out of it, breaking even more legs in the process.  In less than 10 seconds, the monster was reduced to a disgusting mess on the floor.

As for the big man, he had finally recovered enough from the abrupt attacks that he was able