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

to fend off his own Jumping Spider.  By watching it jump back and forth, grunting in pain every time it landed on him and took a few bites before hopping away again, he had learned its timing.  Taking a two-handed grip on his wooden weapon, he swung with all of his might when it jumped at him again.

Unlike the other Spider that had been knocked off of his sister, this one didn’t even survive long enough to hit the nearby wall in one piece.  The swing had done so much damage that the giant arachnid basically crumpled around the weapon, practically blasting apart upon contact, slinging Spider parts and other disgusting innards all over the hanging cloth and webs.

“Jeska!  Are you alri—aaah!” he asked as he was turning around to check on his sister, but Clay’s room wasn’t done with him.  The other Spider in the room, a Cave Spider, had slowly emerged from the shadows where it had been hiding and crept up on the distracted Hero.  Even while its brethren was being obliterated by a powerful swing, it had approached undetected; as Arcen turned around, he was bit on his butt, and he screamed out louder than he had before.  He fell to his knees as his strength appeared to give out, and his breathing became labored.

The baby dragonling next to his Core abruptly spoke up.  “Now that Spider is venomous.  Slow, with a weak defense, but its venom can reduce a Hero’s strength – and consequently their Attack power – down to 0 for a limited time.”  I really need to dig into all of these attributes of my monsters at some point, he told himself.  But not right now.

Pascale was fast to react, hitting the black arachnid with his weapon, mimicking what had happened to the previous Jumping Spider as it was flung away, though this time it was further into the room…which was all the Explosive Shambler needed to prompt it to start its own attack.

“Arcy, what’s wrong?” the attractive Support Hero asked, slipping by his side and wrapping her hands around his arm worriedly.

“I’m…so…weak.  I can’t ever remember feeling this we—” His explanation was cut off as a loud “groan of death” erupted from behind him.  The Explosive Shambler…shambled…into view, its arms raised out in front of it as if seeking something to grab and tear apart.

“I can’t see!  What is that?!” Jeska screamed from the ground as she tried to pick herself up.  Blood covered her face, and Clay couldn’t tell if her lack of vision was because she had indeed lost both her eyes to the Jumping Spider’s bites, or if her eyes were simply too coated in red-colored bodily fluids.

“It’s…it’s…I don’t know!  We need to run!” Kelty shouted, grabbing onto Jeska and helping her to her feet.

“Arcy?  You need to get up – we need to go!” Rosara shouted, doing her best to lift up the big man, but he barely budged; he was way too heavy for any of the Heroes to lift by themselves, and even if all of them pitched in, it was doubtful he could be shifted enough to escape.

“Can’t…go on…save yourselves,” he panted out, glancing behind him at the undead thing getting closer.

“No!  I’m not leaving my brother!” Jeska shouted out, even as Kelty was pulling her away.

“Hold on, let me try something,” Rosara shot back, before standing up and facing the Shambler.  It groaned again, only about 5 feet away now, and she answered it with…a song.  What in the world is going on?  A beautiful, wordless melody emerged from the Support Hero’s throat, though that wasn’t the only thing that emerged; a blue light seemed to spring into being, as if created by the sounds she was making, and it floated towards the Shambler.  When the brutal monster was only about 2 feet away from grabbing onto the weakened man, the blue light of the song seemed to envelop the monster, practically freezing it in place.

As soon as that happened, her song stopped and Rosara snapped her mouth shut before turning to the others.  “Hurry!  I got some sort of message about this monster being stronger than the others, so the effect won’t last too long.  And don’t touch it!  That will break my ‘Captivating Melody’ skill if you do.”  She bent down to put her shoulders under Arcen’s left arm, and tried to lift him again without much difference.

However, Pascale was quickly there and got underneath the other arm.  Kelty even joined in and helped to lift him up from his knees from his front, gripping onto his pants of all things.  Jeska wiped some of the blood from her face, revealing that one of her eyes was still intact, though the other was…a mess.  She quickly moved behind her brother and did her best to move him as well, lifting him up via his butt cheeks.

They managed to get him to his feet and even moved a step forward.  Suddenly, he stood upright under his own power and his breathing immediately returned to normal.  “Hold on, I think the spider venom has worn—what’s that sound?”

The “frozen” effect of Clay’s Shambler had ended a second ago, and it was free to move again.  As it slowly shambled forward, there was a hissing noise coming from it completely unlike the death-like moans from before.

All of the Heroes turned around to see the monster almost upon them, and this time they reacted more quickly than they had before.  Wooden stick weapons were wielded against Clay’s slow Shambler, hitting it hard enough to break bones, and even the weaponless Support Hero kicked it with vengeful glee.  The undead monster was too slow to grab onto anyone, but it also could take a pounding from them without seeming to really feel it.  I guess that makes sense, it being undead and all.  Despite not feeling pain, it was obviously getting