Left is right, right is wrong (Dungeon diving, pt 3)

You re-cast Burning Barrage again, then Brighid leads to way into the left-hand tunnel. This one twists and turns even more than the entrance tunnel, and after a minute or so you come to a split, with one branch leading left and down and the other right and upwards. Once again, you take the left branch, reasoning that the queen is probably in the deepest section. It is not long before the tunnel opens out into another large, dark chamber.

This time, you and Brighid stay at the tunnel mouth and you launch your barrage from cover. The first set of motes you send arcing into the cavern and then looping upwards against the wall and ceiling directly around the tunnel. You don't hit any mites, but as you wait for the cooldown to end, you hear a buzzing sound somewhere off in the darkness ahead of you and Brighid cries out, "Adults! Get behind me!" She turns partially sideways, blocking the tunnel with her body but keeping enough of a forward facing to wield her glaive effectively against whatever is coming. "There will be juveniles too, you handle those and I'll take care of the big ones."

Almost as soon as she finishes, a huge mite, at least a meter long, emerges into her magical light and streaks towards her. Brighid knocks it out of the air with her glaive and immediately chops and stabs at it twice. Another pair buzz in and soon it's all she can do to keep them at bay. Shortly after the adults engage Brighid, the juveniles begin to swarm into range, crawling across the cavern floor. You crouch down behind the centaur and fire two jets of fire out of the tunnel entrance, sweeping them back and forth across the leading edge of the approaching swarm like a a demented opposite-day firefighter. As you roast dozens of juvenile mites, the cooldown on Burning Barrage elapses and you try something you haven't yet, recasting it while in the middle of a Flame Jet cast. The effort is a serious strain on your Concentration and coordination, but the seven fiery embers blink into existence above your head after two seconds -- just in time for your priorities to shift.

It turns out that the juveniles weren't just approaching from the floor. Dozens of them begin to climb down from the walls of the cavern and enter the tunnel on its ceiling and walls. "Fire in the hole!" You shout to Brighid and unleash your Burning Barrage, sending one mote against each wall and one against the ceiling of the tunnel, and the remaining motes into the swarm of juveniles nearing the tunnel on the floor. Heat washes over you, but your timing and aim are true and the flames stop just short of you and Brighid. The juveniles aren't nearly as lucky, and scores of them are crushed and thrown through the air or reduced to piles of burning carapace by the near-simultaneous detonations. Your Flame Jets run out and you immediately begin casting them again with each hand even as Brighid finishes off the third adult with a back-handed chop which severs its head. The juveniles take advantage of the momentary absence of fiery **** to surge forward. You've already killed dozens of them, perhaps even half a hundred, and still Brighid's light reflects from a sea of scuttling mites.

"Back up! We can't let them surround us!" You call out to her and begin scrambling back towards the split in the tunnel. Brighid backs up as best she can, and a moment later you begin to direct two streams of fire along the walls and ceiling, roasting the mites you can reach. The leading edge of the swarm gets close enough that they start to smoke from Brighid's Fiery Aura Ability, but still they press on, clawing their way over the smoldering corpses of their fellows. The creatures are fast and soon you and Brighid are in full retreat, you aiming blasts of fire over your shoulder and Brighid just trying to keep herself between you and the enemies. Her Fiery Aura takes a toll on the mites, but it isn't until she scoops you up and stretches out into a full gallop that you get enough time to re-cast Burning Barrage and dual Flame Jets and finally whittle the swarm down to under a dozen enemies. Brighid sets you down then whirls and finishes off the rest with stamps of her hooves and wide strikes from her weapon. You keep your fire trained on the piles of corpses littering the tunnel behind you until the spells end and you're certain that none of the nasty things are still alive.

Both you and Brighid are panting with exertion. You check your combat log and **** back a strangled shout of, "What the fuck?!"

Aidan Lostlorn's party has earned 15,150 experience for killing 285 Juvenile Rock Mites and 3 Adult Rock Mites.

Congratulations! You have reached level 16 in Fire Magic.
Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Leadership. You are now Unskilled in Leadership.

"There were almost three hundred of those goddamn things in that room! I know you said there would be hundreds, but I wasn't expecting that to mean all at once!"

Brighid just grins at you, sweat plastering her hair to her face and chest heaving, and pants out, "Yeah ... but we both got over 7,000 experience from them! That's a level for each of us, and we aren't even done yet!"

Sure enough...

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 5.

As a Chosen Helltouched Human, you have six Attribute points to distribute and your Willpower and Charisma increase by one. You also gain 25% advancement towards any one Skill. Allocate these within 72 hours or they will be randomly assigned. Honor thy Patron and follow thy heart!

Current experience: 21,800. Experience required for next level: 27,500.

You quickly allocate your points: one each in Logic, Intuition, Willpower, Charisma, following the magic focus plan; one in Endurance to increase your Stamina for your new ritual; and one in Luck in thanks that you made it out of that encounter unscathed. You keep the Skill bonus in reserve for now. Once Brighid indicates that she is finished with her leveling for the moment as well, she leads the way back up the tunnel. The swarm chamber entrance is choked with dead juveniles in various states of dismemberment and incineration, and you actually expend a Burning Barrage to blast the piles of dead mites into the chamber in lieu of pushing through. After waiting for the spell's cooldown and ensuring that the explosions haven't triggered another swarm attack, the pair of you cautiously make your way into the room.

This chamber is long and narrow, and about halfway in you start to come across piles of bones and hundreds of decaying corpses, all showing signs of being chewed upon. Mostly the remains are of animals, but there are centaurs and humanoids among the dead as well. The fleshiest corpses, near the back, bulge with clusters of wriggling, vaguely rice-grain shaped objects the size of American footballs buried just under the skin. Brighid identifies them as larval mites and you grimly set to incinerating every single corpse. The scent makes you vomit more than once, and it takes nearly an hour to be sure you destroy every last one, but eventually the task is done. A tiny voice inside you says that you should search the corpses for loot, but the rest of you is utterly repulsed by the idea of handling the rotten corpses any more than you already have.

"I really, really hope that was the only chamber like that in this Dungeon. I am going to smell like rotten corpse and oily smoke for a month. Let's get out of here, it doesn't look like there are any more exits, so we can just take the other fork in the tunnel from the first room."