The spiders are much faster than expected, almost reaching the group before being intercepted by the Golems. Their jaws struggle to gain purchase on the shields of the Tank golems, but the scimitars of their riders have no problem digging severe wounds.

The Poison Wasps and the upgraded shadow blades of Elmira put a quick end to that. The Elves are exceptionally agile but no match for the fast moving Wasps. The shadow blades cut them down off their mounts, striking with much more impact than before, and they’re quickly overwhelmed.

Char’s lightning arcs between spiders, singing carapace and making their legs twitch. Within a minute, the spider riding elves have been eliminated.

“Did you see how strong my shadow blades are now? That was amazing! Plus, I can cast them over and over without running out of mana.” Elmira is more than a little excited about her first victory with her new companions.

“You’re a real magical powerhouse.” Cain agrees. “Now, let’s get moving and see what we get. And remember, your skills, gear and items you get are a secret from people who aren’t in your party. We all got in trouble because we told the wrong people about good things we had.”

It’s probably best to get that out of the way early, knowing that Elmira is very much a little kid at heart, so discretion might not be her strong suit.

“Got it, boss! We can do this.” Elmira cheers.

Two more pulls go smoothly, and then they get to a horde of tiny spiders, which completely ignore all attempts to contain them.

“Mythryll, blizzard, please.” Char calls, “My lightning doesn’t arc to enough targets to deal with this.”

The blizzard spell rages, eliminating the tiny menaces in a moment, leaving Misha with the job of cleansing a load of poison stacks. Easily accomplished with her [Greater Cure Poison].

“Well, that was more annoying than expected We really need more area of effect abilities.” Misha sighs.

Cain was going all out with the exploding arrows and had a lot of summons, but against a hundred tiny spiders, it simply wasn’t enough.

“I’ve got some points. Should I put them into [Shadow Field]? It says it does significant damage to an area.” Elmira asks.

Mythryll ruffles her hair. “We don’t want to tell you what abilities to pick, but you’re right, we have a lot of single target damage, but not much for an area if we get groups of dozens of monsters.”

“All done. I’ll have an area damage effect that lasts 30 seconds every 30 seconds. Does that mean all the time?” The young Pixie asks, excited.

“It certainly does. That’s a really short cooldown time for such a powerful spell.” Cain agrees.

“We can tell party members our abilities, right? I forgot what the rule was.” Elmira asks.

“Yeah, you can tell us this one time.” Mythryll smiles.

“Pixies get reduced cooldown times. I can cast everything else immediately, one after another if I have mana.”

“That’s awesome. Now you can keep an area attack up all the time and target the things you want to get rid of the most.” Char tells her, and the Pixie gets so excited Cain can feel his pocket vibrating.

The first boss is a caster in a black spider web pattern that Elmira is immediately jealous of, wanting it for herself. Two warriors flank the boss with twin swords.

“Until we know what she casts, standard attack pattern. Two tanks on her, one each on the warriors. Elmira, keep your area damage on the boss and attack whatever you think is essential.” Cain is enjoying the pocket Pixie. They chat during fights, she tells him if he misses something moving, and he knows she will attack anything that comes near him because she’s in his pocket.

“Let’s do this. All full on mana.” Misha calls out, and they move forward to engage the boss.

The boss is also a shadow type caster, using both shadow bolts and the same shadow field that Elmira does. The field seems to be focused on hitting Cain, either because of his total damage or because there are two party members at his location. Either way, it’s a positive for the group, he’s got a good movement skill, and most of his damage comes from the golems, so constantly moving instead of shooting isn’t a significant loss.

“Cain, turn my way.” Misha calls, “I can’t see Elmira to heal her.”

Cain laughs and executes a shuffle step out of the shadow field, bringing him to face the healer.

“Sorry about that, little one. I forgot she needed to see you in order to heal you.”

“I’m okay, still a bit above half health,” Elmira confirms, firing off more spells at the boss.

Both warriors fall at nearly the same time, the slender body of the boss being swarmed by Wasps and Lesser Golems. In fact, she’s being hit so often she can’t even cast anymore.

“Just let them do their thing. We can get back mana while the Summons finish the boss.” Cain suggests, and everyone relaxes a little, letting the fight play out on its own.

“Hey, Elmira. Why do you hide inside Cain’s pocket when there’s fighting?” Misha asks.

“It feels safer in there. You know, he’s got that heavy leather coat, with the metal inside and lots of pockets. Nobody else has pockets. If I just slip in there, I can’t fall out, and the coat helps keep me hidden.” the Pixie explains, watching the boss die.

[Level Up]

“Oh, I got two levels so far!” Elmira giggles. “You guys truly are good luck.”

Cain looks over his status sheet, seeing that he’s almost at 50, where he expects to get another upgrade to his Golems. They’ve been coming every ten levels so far.

[Name] Cain

[Level] 49

[Class] Puppet Master

[Race] Human

[Stats] +5

[STR] 100

[DEX] 45

[CON] 70

[INT] 50

[HP] 280

[MP] 250

His progression is coming along well. Another few days in here, and both him and Misha should reach level 50. Maybe even tomorrow.

“One more level to the next spell,” Misha tells everyone.. “I hope it’s something good.”