Karen gave her opinion, “Let’s go for the earth guy first. That sounds like a straight up damage check, so we can see how we stack up.”
Fluff agreed with Karen, “She makes a good point.”
Alburet shrugged, “I’m good with that.”
Gerald looked at Marysue, who also shrugged. “Okay then, the main tunnel leads to the Shaman. The right one leads to the plant, so we want to go left to the earth boss. There will be at least two packs of smaller earth elementals. I don’t think Stacia will be able to daze them. If she can’t, then bring up a second Tiny to help tank the adds. Focus them down one by one, starting with the one that Tiny has. Questions?”
No one had any, so Gerald started them down the main tunnel then split off to the left. The tunnel stopped having moss after a few feet, going back to roughhewn rock in a vaguely circular ten-foot diameter. The minimal light was provided by small shafts that seemed to be open to the sky, but they were so small even Bob wouldn’t have been able to squeeze into them.
They started to hear the scrape of stone against stone as they followed the tunnel. It continued to go off away from the other two tunnels while also having a gradual decline. The light started to wane as the light shafts stopped appearing. In their place a kind of luminescent sheen started on the ceiling, which gave the same over-all lighting after a few more feet. The floor of the tunnel was smooth, while the walls and ceiling had bumps and outcroppings that gave it a more natural look.
After a few hundred feet the tunnel curved hard left. Gerald had the rest of the group stop while he looked around the corner. The sound of stone grinding on stone was very loud. He turned back to the group, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the grinding. “Two elementals around the corner, each has about three thousand health so it’s going to take a while since they have high damage resistances. Any questions?”
“Am I even going to be able to hurt them?” Bob asked grumpily.
Gerald shrugged, “No idea, we’ll find out. Stacia, I don’t think they can be dazed but try the further one to be sure. Tiny, if she can’t daze it then pick it up. If Tiny has to tank, all of you kill the one he has first. Alright, let’s get this party started.”
Gerald went around the corner first, followed by Stacia so she could try to daze one of the two mobs. Tiny followed her in case he had to tank it. As each of them rounded the corner they saw a circular room about thirty feet across. Rumbling around the room were two ten-foot-long quadrupedal creatures. The creatures were the same color as the rock around them, but unlike most four legged critters these had neither tail nor head. One end had a foot-wide hole that seemed to have large flat teeth made of metal. They only stood maybe three feet tall, and were about the same wide. Their legs were easily a foot wide each, simple solid tubes that emerged from each corner of the roughly rectangular creatures. As the Earth Eaters moved, they barely lifted their legs which is what was causing most of the grinding sound.
Gerald started for the closest one which was heading vaguely towards them, while the further one seemed to be rubbing its mouth against the wall. As Alburet took this all in, he dimly noted they didn’t appear to have any eyes. He was just about to comment on it when Stacia started singing at the furthest one. The Earth Eater furthest from them pulled back from the wall, turning towards them and coming at them fast. The closer one also came towards them at speed, reminding Alburet of an avalanche.
“No good,” Stacia said as she pulled her blades.
Alburet slapped Tiny with buffs before he stepped back. Gerald attacked the closer one, turning it away from the group as he did. Tiny took a small step forward, hacking at his target when it got in range. His axe clanged off it, doing minimal damage. Karen, Fluff, Stacia and Alburet all started to circle around it. Alburet knew he had to wait longer than the others due to how much damage his axe did, so he tried to find any weak spots on the Earth Eater as they moved. After another few seconds, the women started their attacks along with Bob.
“Only twenty damage a hit?” Fluff seemed puzzled after her first two attacks.
“Yeah, outside of my first attack from stealth, I’m doing maybe ten a hit and I can’t poison it either.” Karen groused.
“At least you can do damage,” Bob sulked as he stopped casting at the mob.
“I do less than ten meself,” Stacia added.
Tiny was taking damage, but not a tremendous amount luckily. Alburet’s heal over time was still not keeping up with the damage Tiny was taking. Alburet cast Demonic Vitality onto Tiny again before he triggered his flame ability for his weapon. Pausing for another second, he swung hard into the side of the monster. He blinked as he only got a little over a hundred damage from the weapon and only half of the fifty fire damage to go through the monster’s armor.
“Well fuck, these things really do negate a lot of damage,” Alburet said, in agreement with the other’s complaints.
It took a few minutes for them to drop the one on Tiny before they could move over to help Gerald, who had done minimal damage to his in that time period. Everyone piled in except for Bob, who was standing next to Marysue and sulking. Two minutes later the second Earth Eater fell over dead for them. The group let out a collective sigh of relief before Gerald bent to loot the corpse.
“This sucks,” Bob stated flatly. “Until master gets to twenty-one and gets the spell to summon a stronger version of me I am useless for these rock things. They don’t have soft points for me to target to get damage in.”
“Do you want to take a break until we’re done with this side of the dungeon?” Alburet asked as he dismissed the copy of Stacia to summon a copy of Tiny instead.
“No, I want to help,” Bob groused before he looked away. “I just don’t like being useless.”
“Well, when we go after the next two wings of this dungeon I’m sure you’ll get your chance,” Alburet told Bob. “Until then, go ahead and head on back to the Infernal plane for a bit. Find a succubus and see if she’ll help ease your mind.”
Bob shrugged, “Fine.” He vanished in a puff of smoke.
“A sulky imp, now I’ve seen it all,” Gerald chuckled. “Only coin on these two, but it was a nice bit of silver. I think there’s another room like this one, then the boss room. Now that we’ve fought them does everyone understand what we’re looking at?”
Karen nodded, “If the boss has the same kind of armor it’s going to be a bitch to kill him.”
Fluff pulled a two-handed hammer out of her bag, “I’ll try this on the next set.”
The group moved on down the tunnel until it came to the next room, where two more Earth Eaters moved about running their mouths over the walls. Alburet was able to see small chunks of the wall break away and be devoured.
“So, they eat rock and are made of rock?” Alburet muttered.
Gerald nodded, “Yup. Also, I’m sure you guys noticed they don’t have eyes. The best guess we came up with during beta was a tremorsense ability. So, the more noise you make the easier it is for them to find you. Though they do follow regular mob logic and attack the person with the most aggro. We ready for round two?”
The next fight went almost the same as the first, but this time it went a little quicker as Fluff was able to get almost fifty damage in at a go with the two-hander. Once the coin was looted, the group paused to recover mana and health. As they waited Fluff nodded, “A good point to keep in mind, two-handed weapons in here are almost a must to really do any damage.”
Karen sighed, “Tell me about it. At least the gnolls will have weak points and will be susceptible to poison.”