"Everyone ready to go?" Eisen asked, looking at the soldiers that each had their new lanterns strapped to their hips, "Each frost gem will last for at most six hours. I will tell each of you to swap it out at the five hour mark to be doubly sure. Just give the used up gems to and I'll take care of the rest. In case of so kind of ergency, make sure that each of you have five replacent gems with you at all tis."
Everyone listened to the old man closely, though Brody rolled his eyes. He had been complaining about how overly careful Eisen was being, and that there was no need to exaggerate like that. But when it ca to the lives of the soldiers, Eisen wanted to be as careful as he possibly could be. Yes, of course, there was always the threat of them dying – they ca here knowing this exact thing. But Eisen himself would rather die than not giving the soldiers the best fighting chance they could get.
Of course, Brody understood that as well, he just thought that Eisen was mothering the soldiers far too much.
"Let's get movin' already," the demon-orc halfling groaned, stepping out into the heat. He was the only one beside Eisen that wasn't carrying one of the lanterns.
Both demons and orcs had high resistances against environntal factors, so combined, they could survive almost anywhere. Of course, that wasn't enough to give them a resistance against this sort of volcanic wasteland, but Brody was able to make up for that with his internal energy and boost his already existing physical resistances to the maximum, to the point where he could hold out for however long he needed to in almost any environnt. Even when one of the beetles spat molten rock at him, he barely flinched. It did cause damage, of course, but nothing even close to what you would expect from sothing like that.
And with Brody leading everyone, the group continued on their way. Eisen made sure to keep the kids particularly close to him. They were all extrely weak to fire. Insectoids like lissa, Arachnids like Sal, and Myconids like Caria were all weak against fla at a base level unless they evolved in a way that negated this, just as all of the monsters on the floor here had.
But usually, when a species of monsters evolved to thrive when surrounded by sothing that should be their weakness, they threw away many of their other resistances and developed many new vulnerabilities. And the vulnerabilities of these fla-enhanced insects was very obvious. The mont their bodies cooled down too much, they weren't able to move and started periodically losing health. And because of the frost bubbles that surrounded literally everyone in the group, once they got to close-combat range, the dungeon monsters were weakened considerably.
Normally, monsters would start to avoid or run away from them on instinct, but this was a dungeon and its monsters were here as a defence chanism. Even if they died, it didn't matter at all, as they could just respawn after a little bit of ti had passed.
"Is there a reason why you're not just freezing them over all at once?" Bree wondered, walking beside Eisen. For the ti being, she had analysed everything that she needed to here on this floor, so she could relax at least for a little while.
"Because this is a good place to make sure everyone knows how to fight in this environnt," Eisen explained, "This is the first of the five floors that will be thed like this, and it's only going to get worse. So in the scenario that I won't be able to freeze them all, everyone will need to know how to handle the more powerful version of these monsters."
"But your magic is so strong... why wouldn't it work?" Caria pointed out, rushing up to Eisen's side.
The old man just smiled down at her, as Caria pushed up her large mushroom hat to look up at him properly as well, "Well, to begin with, it's not combat magic. Though that's not really relevant when it cos to elental vulnerabilities, I guess. But more importantly, it's not ice magic. At the end of the day, it's still fire magic, and while I can make freezing flas, it will always be a few steps below true ice magic."
"Ohh, okay, okay," Caria listened along, placing her hands behind her back, "But didn't you use your magic before? To keep the camp safe, I an?"
"Right, but that wasn't just my magic, that was my domain. Plus, my goal wasn't to freeze, it was just to counteract the natural heat of this floor. Either way, a place like this won't be too much trouble, it's just better to be prepared. Once Brody and I are sure that everyone can react to the monsters on the floor as needed, we'll try to hurry things up a bit."
Sky let out a long, loud yawn, "You sure that Brody isn't just saying that so we have to slow down and he can win the bet you guys made?"
Eisen wanted to retort imdiately, saying that he would never do sothing like that, but he hesitated for a mont, "Give a second."
He imdiately sprouted his wings and flew forward to the tip of the group where Brody was taking lead.
"What are you doing here? Did sothing happen?" Brody asked, concerned, but Eisen shook his head.
"No, no, of course not. Everything's fine, just... Sky just said sothing that made think. But you're not making us slow down so that you can win the bet, right?"
Brody flinched for a mont, and then looked at the old man, "What? No, of course not!"
Eisen raised a brow, "Really?"
"Okay, fine, maybe it was part of my decision-making process. But ya know, just a small part of a long list of reasons. Not a big deal."
"Mhmm," Eisen smiled lightly, "So, what do you think, then? The soldiers can clearly deal with the monsters on this floor well. My items are supporting them decently enough, so they should be able to react if my own magic fails on the next couple floors."
The two looked at each other for a few monts, in a silent, motionless stalemate with each other. It was like they were ntally communicating, neither giving up any ground to the other. In the end, Brody let out a loud groan.
"Okay, fine, whatever. Just... let us take out this group, and then I'll take a look at the soldiers and give you a sign, yeah?"
"Perfect. Thank you very much," Eisen replied, and quickly turned back around to fly away to the back of the group again. With that handled, Eisen could know that there wouldn't be too much bet-related interference with Brody anymore.
Either way, though, it sounded like it was going to be pretty tight as well. Brody made the bet that it would take the others two days to catch up, and Eisen said it would take longer than that. At the pace that they were going right now, they were right around the two day mark since the bet was made, aning they would arrive soti tomorrow.
And considering that those three were a bit unpredictable, as Eisen and Brody self-admittedly were as well, nobody could really say for sure when they would get there.
Eisen had actually set a small tir, a simple pocket watch with so magic functionality, for when the ti him and Brody had agreed on was up. There were still exactly 21 hours and 43 minutes until Eisen won the bet. And different to Brody, he couldn't really do much to speed everyone up and increase the gap.
Taking things slowly didn't make the situation any more dangerous, rather the opposite, but rushing definitely increased the danger and made especially accidents a lot more likely, and Eisen wasn't willing to jeopardize anything for this bet. Plus, they were really far ahead of their expected schedule anyway, so there wasn't any need to rush overall, anyway. Not that they were under particular ti-pressure anyway. There was no ti limit to resurrecting a tad monster, after all.
As Eisen was thinking so, he was given the signal by Brody, and so the old man took out a small item that should help him clear up a path here in this volcanic cave.
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