True to his word Clyde's party comes back every couple of days to delve. By the third delve they manage to make it as far as they ever did before and by the fourth delve it's like they never stopped delving. They even managed a Full clear of the third floor. Instead of going for the boss though Clyde chose to continue delving the third floor. An understandable precaution considering the four-armed skeleton boss is obsidian rank. Eventually they all manage to reach level 16, except for Chandra who is level 15 now thanks to constantly being dragged into fights above her level.
While they were busy doing that though I was busy putting the finishing touches on the fifth floor. Namely the last two farm rooms. I suspect that because they are so used to eventually reaching a dead end it will take them a long time to realize this floor has no dead ends. Of course, I still take a few weeks to look over the new floor. I want to make sure I haven't missed any important detail. Everything looks to be in order though.
The golems are spaced just short of six and a half meters apart. Enough space that they should be able to clear out an area to rest and recover. It won't be easy and will require them to stay in one area, but by this point delvers have learned not to plow ahead recklessly or spread themselves to thin. The forest rooms of the fifth floor are designed to test a parties resolve. Forcing them to earn every meter of ground.
Griffons on the other hand are each set to guard a 100 square meter area, so the number of griffons encountered at a time depends entirely on the party's path. If they happen to enter an area where two or more territories meet, they will have to fight multiple griffons. Given their size I'd imagine griffons normally have much bigger territories, but my rooms simply don't have that kind of space. At least not yet. Eventually though I do want to have entire ecosystems inside each room.
The skeletons are another story entirely, they are set to attack on sight. Due to this I intentionally made most of them weak 'normal' or merchant skeletons rather than any of the combat classes. Interestingly I could set the merchants to non-hostile. That would however require raising their intelligence to a level I'm not comfortable with and getting delvers to not kill them on sight. Not that I'm entirely against sapient mobs just not sapient skeletons.
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After looking everything over a few more time and finding nothing that needs fixing or changing, I decide to create the sixth floor. This time however I decide that starting from the sixth-floor delvers can skip the floors they've already cleared. This is partly because of how massive the floors are getting. Mainly though it's because each floor they delve gives me exponentially more mana meaning it's a waste to have really high-level delvers, specifically those strong enough to make it beyond the fifth floor, on the first few floors.
I'm just about ready to start expanding and filling out the sixth-floor entryway when I get a notice from the part of my consciousness monitoring the third floor that Clyde's party is about to attempt the third-floor boss. I must have been more distracted than I thought because I had intended to watch them clear the third floor. I can't help it though. The size of the rooms I plan to make is 160m x 160m x 160m. Although just twice as big as far as the length of each side, it represents an increase in the overall surface area I have to work with of 19,200 square meters. I mean technically I could use the ceiling and walls too but that just splitting hairs.
For now, I brush those thoughts aside and focus on the fight. I fixed a few of the most glaring flaws since my boss was defeated by the ladies. So, I'm eager to see how it performs. Cole gets things started by using his taunt ability to get the bosses attention. Meanwhile the others spread out encircling it. Normally it would work to leave the encirclement, but it is still vulnerable to taunt. I do want the boss to be beatable after all. So, instead it charges right for Cole and right into the trap.
The boss brings two massive swords down on Cole's shield while also defending from both Clyde and Chandra. To his credit Cole stands his ground but he's definitely going to be feeling that in the morning. I can already see fractures forming along the bones in his forearm. So, while less impressive allowing himself to be pushed back would have probably been better. Clyde and Chandras attacks are both blocked but Darrel aiming, who is currently behind the boss manages to land a few ice spears in the boss's torso. Aiming for the spot mention in the other party's report.
While originally an oversight on my part I decided to leave it in as an intentional weak point. After all the fight would be too unfair otherwise. Especially after seeing how much the enchantments on the boss's gear increase his basic stats. Unfortunately, for both my boss and Cole, because of the taunt skill almost all of that power was focused on Cole. This meant that the boss continues to just absolutely hammer Coles shield like a drummer in a heavy metal band. Even with Lily increasing his defense he's already had to down one potion, not easy considering he was also holding a sword in that hand. By now there are fractures throughout most of Cole's skeleton.
The good news is that Darrel has been busy pounding away at the same spot with ice spears and while it took much longer than using earth spears it eventually worked causing the skeleton to split in half.
