Unexpected Guests - Interlude 2 - Early Evaluations

Little short today, but I think that's okay because it really gets the point across.

I'm begining to realize that this is going to be MUCH longer than I originally intended. I originally planned to have the story mostly finished by now, but it's barely started. If I've learned anything from this week it's that I really love DD, and want to get back to writing it, and I'm terrible at scheduleing.

I haven't decided what to do about this... I don't want to dedicate all my time to finishing this and let my other stories sit untouched. Maybe I'll drop this to 1-2 times a week, and pick up one of the others.

Let me know what you think I should do.

“That had to be one of the most awkward, and entertaining, run I’ve seen in years!” Bella chucked. The banshee leaned back, until she was parallel to the floor, put her hands behind her head, and floated there a couple inches above the floor. “What do you think of our newest challenger?”

The two of us were casually ‘sitting’ on the massive orchestrational stage at the end of my floor, the ballroom, like we normally did during the early part of a delve. Technically we weren’t supposed to leave our positions during the Delve, but Laniva never said anything and we were very careful to clean-up after ourselves and be in position when it was our turn, so no one ever complained.

Dungeon delves were part competition, part performance, so everyone dressed up for the matches. My hair was done up, and I had a black dress, which was half ballgown, half armor. It was meant to give the audience the impression of an elegant dancer while I fought.

The ballroom had a full orchestra playing during the battle, spectres that danced around the main area which couldn’t be destroyed, just avoided, and Bella and a squad of vampires to harass the team midway through. It wasn’t just a challenge, it was a spectacle, one the audience expected.

Thankfully, the way the manor was structured meant that we had plenty of time to observe our opponents. Once the adventuring team fought their way through the forest they’d be given a choice of three wings, each one containing two floors. They could be challenged in any order, but once you committed you had to finish both stages.

There was a one in three chance that someone would choose our wing, and even if they came this way first they had to fight all the way through the parlor, and defeat Luther, before they had a chance to challenge me. That gave us plenty of time to clean-up.

I dropped the live feed, letting it clatter to the ground at my side as I snatched up my note taking tablet and furiously began entering data.

“Talia? Hello? I asked you a question,” Bella called from across the stage.

“Yes, I heard you,” I replied distractedly. 

“Really? Because from here it looks like you’ve started taking notes, and gone into automated reply mode again.”

“Uh huh.”

Bella sighed. Slipping through the stage she snuck up next to me before popping out and snatching the tablet from my fingers.

“My notes!” I cried. Despite my best effort I wasn’t able to grab it out of her hands before it was pulled out of reach.

“What is with you? I haven’t seen you go non-communicative like that since the last dungeon duel. Why are you so focused on this group? They’re just a relatively unknown group that stepped in as a last minute replacement.”

“Not relatively unknown, completely unknown!” I exclaimed, grabbing another tablet off the small pile at my side. It only took me a moment to pull up the league page that I’d been looking at earlier. “They don’t have any match records, the team isn’t even registered in the league! It’s like they appeared out of nowhere!”

“And why is that so exciting to you?” Bella sighed. My friend was not only a sub-boss in one of the top dungeons in the world, but she was one of the biggest dungeon delve fans in the country. Even with all that enthusiasm, she had problems putting up with my obsessive strategizing sometimes.

“You must have noticed, it was like they walked into the dungeon completely blind. Have you ever met someone that hasn’t at least heard of the Manor before? Not only that, but that big one seemed to be surprised that Voss was waiting at the end of the Forest. Even if they’d never heard of the Manor, they should have expected a boss!” I gushed.

“Right, I admit it’s weird…” Bella admitted, lowering my tablet slightly. “So?”

“So? Despite not knowing anything, they walked in there and completely smashed their way through the forest. If it wasn’t for that lucky slime catching that one bear they would have got through the entire floor without a single casualty. Against Voss,” I said, emphasizing the last part.

“Alright, I admit that’s unusual, but maybe it was beginner’s luck,” Bella suggested.

“Please… just take a step back for a moment, and remember what we saw in that match. The two big ones completely ignoring both the slimes and the dryads, the coordination the group showed when surrounding Voss, the fact that the biggest one completely shrugged off one of Voss’s attacks,” I said, growing more excited.

“I wouldn’t say it completely shrugged it off…” Bella muttered. It was obvious she wasn’t so confident in her position as she was even two minutes earlier.

“Completely. Went through a tree, got stuck in the bog, and walked right back into the fight without a scratch on him. You can see it in the background of the foxes’ camera. He then severed Voss’ leg with a single strike. Even a giant would struggle with that,” I exclaimed.

“Fine, I admit they’re far from normal, still doesn’t explain why you’re obsessed with them,” Bella finally conceded, passing me back the tablet.

“I knew there was something different about them when I saw them in the atrium, and now… I want to figure out a strategy to stop them,” I explained.

Bella shook her head. “I really doubt that’ll be necessary. They’re tough, but they’re not unkillable. I’m sure they’ll be worn down over time.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure…” I said as I started frantically recording everything I remembered about the match. “If we’re going to have any chance of defeating them, we need to start early. First, I need to send the others a quick note. They need to focus their attacks on the smaller members of the party, and leave the big ones alone. I need a little bit of time to figure out how to deal with those ones.”

“Is that all?” Bella scoffed.

I paused my mad scribbling for a moment and glanced up at her.

“No. They need to watch out for the bear girl. I’ve seen hundreds of dungeon defenders, and thousands of adventurers over the years, and I’ve never seen someone move like that. I definitely wouldn’t call her the most accomplished fighter, but she’s unbelievably fast, and she had a knack of being in exactly the right place, at the right time,” I bit my lip as I went over the match in my head. “Although I’d like to write it off as luck, I don’t think that’s what it was. It was more like some sort of combat instinct, built up over hundreds of battles.”

“Where could someone get that kind of combat experience outside of the dungeons? It’s not like there are a ton of bandits to fight, or monsters to hunt out there. We live in a civilized country,” Bella said quietly.

“I dunno,” I mumbled, “and that concerns me.”