Do not eagerly take William Oh’s name, lest Fate subject you to the same tribulations as the man himself.
- Jason Salazar
The fish didn’t make it easy.
The sixteenth Floor was the first Floor where Will and Loth could level again, but the fish didn’t want to cooperate.
First of all, they liked to operate a few hundred feet under the grey surface of the water, making even reaching them a pain.
The next problem was hitting the monsters.
Since Will and the others were looking at a place about the size of a couch which represented a sphere over a mile in radius, the tiniest twitch would send any ranged attack wildly off-course.
Not to mention the monsters living inside these bubbles of warped space could themselves warp space. Much like octopus shooting ink, these monsters could shoot a raw slurry of space when threatened that would tear apart or send astray any projectile sent towards them.
It reminded Will of the description of the Uru Drake Breath, actually.
The Hammer of God’s aim-correction worked if the monsters weren’t given time to react, but its acceleration struggled against the seawater, and often tore the missile apart before it could land. The damage was reduced too, as the lightning radiated outwards into the water rather than all of it striking a single target.
After several frustrating hours of trying, they discovered that Will could find and grab targets from the ocean and pull them up to the surface where they could kill them more easily as long as he caught them off guard, but that was wildly inefficient and difficult to do without being able to see the creatures directly.
“…This is why you bring a team with you.” Will mused, overseeing their current process.
They had spent most of the day finding Jorn an appropriate summon. A lot of the monsters down there were slimy tentacle thingies with poor speed, which wouldn’t make good hunting dogs for the bone shaman.
Things finally took off when Loth made a bait that lured in a fast predator. It was a giant fish with scales that made space slip by it, practically flickering forward to snag it’s prey with jaws filled with flesh-slicing teeth harder than Blessed Steel, sharp as a dimensional rift.
Mundane materials are beginning to fall by the wayside.
They managed to drag it to the surface, where Jorn killed it and showed the true value of his class:
His summons were adapted to the environment that they were born in, and would demonstrate their full strength in their home turf.
It seemed obvious enough, but it was a sight to behold.
Once they got that first kill, all Will had to do was watch their back for surprise attacks while Jorn’s school of glimmer sharks started to rack up more and more kills, giving the Party a rapidly increasing flood of XP to share.
Congratulations, you are now a level 68 World Traveller!
…
“Everyone else level sixty-eight?” Will asked after a few hours.
Loth and Jorn nodded.
“Alright, have your summons clear the Key Site.”
Naturally, the Key Site was at the center of one of the bubbles of space, under crushing pressures and complete darkness.
If they didn’t have to go themselves, more the better.
Dimensional Oyster Infestation.
A cluster of dimensional Oysters has-
Thank you for clearing the Key Site. You may advance to the 17th Floor at your discretion.
+ 40000XP
“Jorn, you fucking rocked this Floor!” Will shouted, shaking his young vassal by the shoulders and whooping. “Nobody even had to get wet again!”
“T-thank the gods, I was starting to feel like a fraud.” Jorn said, tears in his eyes as Loth gave him a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. High praise from the former kobold.
“Jorn, how much Charge do you have left?”
“About fifty, Milord.”
“Let’s wait overnight then,” Will said. The seventeenth Floor didn’t have a lot of information about it, so Will didn’t know what to expect other than it would be ‘more difficult’.
“I really wanna take this thing off already,” Jorn grumbled, itching at where Abby was clinging to his front. The giant mutant centipede was making a visible dent in the raw miasma permeating Jorn’s body, matching the 10th Floor’s atmosphere.
“You do that and we’re here for another month. At least.” Will said.
“I know, it’s just…itchy.”
“Oh?” Loth said. “I never considered it. I suppose your skin is a lot different than mine. She glanced over at Will. “You never mentioned Abby was itchy.”
“Because it’s so groundbreaking that itchiness is not a factor.” Will said.
“Hmmm…I’ll see what I can do about the design, but unfortunately I can’t take that one off until you get back home or else we’ll be stuck for weeks.”
“I understand.” Jorn said, flopping onto the raft. In the distance, the other spheres of water looked hundreds of feet away, but the moment one stood up, they would loom large overhead.
It made you sick to the stomach if you paid too much attention to it.
In a few minutes, Jorn was asleep, and Will was keeping watch with Loth. Jorn’s summons were probably enough to keep them safe, but Will didn’t like gambling his life on a ‘probably’ if he didn’t have to.
Will checked in on the Burned Stronghold.
Boop.
“The Burned Stronghold isn’t on fire.” Brianna’s voice came out of the raven.
Will blinked as he realized something.
The Burned Stronghold is currently not on fire.
The Burned Stronghold is not on fire.
The Burned Stronghold isn’t on fire.
Why is the message getting shorter and sloppier? Will thought. Maybe it was the distance between the raven and the nearest Brianna causing degradation of the message, but…he doubted it.
“I think something bad is happening at the Burned Stronghold.” Will said. He’d assumed that Marksman would make a move once Will was out of the way.
Does it involve Brianna? Will thought, fists tightening. She was wearing a custom-tailored Charm-resistance ring that Will had boosted by manifesting it through Phantom Hands. She should be nearly impossible to mind-control despite her Class’s weakness to it.
Is she degrading the message to tell me how bad things are? A little bad, kinda bad, really bad? I should’ve come up with a code more detailed than ‘fine’ and ‘bad’ before we left. Ah well, hindsight.
They’d seen Will leave without Brianna, so if Marksman wasn’t thinking too hard, he or his people would assume Will was without communications…
Assuming Carrie Envar didn’t leak the information.
“Something bad? Awfully vague. What do you plan on doing about it?” Loth asked.
“I plan to stick to the plan.” Will said. “I’ll be a lot more equipped to handle Marksman if I get to level seventy. The bastard likes to plot and scheme for power and money, but in all that plotting and scheming, he’s forgotten what makes a Lord.”
“And if everyone dies while you’re gone?”
“I raised guards. An army of Advanced Classers. I picked capable lieutenants, gave them powerful Relics. I left some surprises. Did my best to make the Burned Stronghold a tough nut to crack.” Will said, looking up at the shifting skyline of grey spheres drifting past each other. “They should survive. Long enough for me to do what I have to do. And if they don’t…Well, I probably won’t start over. I’ll just give up on being a Lord and just keep Climbing until I find out what’s up there. Or die.”
“Hmm. I admit I left some surprises in the Burned Stronghold as well.” Loth said.
Will stared at Loth.
“They’re not gonna kill any of my people are they?” Will asked.
“As long as they don’t do anything stupid.”
“You of ALL people should know that it’s impossible to avoid doing something stupid twenty-four seven.” Will said.
“Speak for yourself.” Loth replied.
“If I get back and the Burned Stronghold is missing because one of my people set off a trap…” Will shook his fist.
“Relax, they’re self-contained. No damage to the infrastructure. Although…dried blood on the carpet might be considered damage to the infrastructure.”
Loth tapped her chin in thought.
“…I should’ve added a self-cleaning function.”
I hope you’re okay, Badur et al. Will thought, shaking his head.
Six Floors below them, things had hit a snag with the plan to slaughter the crystal giants and create a set from them right under William Oh’s nose.
“So here’s what happened.” Pax said, pointing to the chalkboard he’d set up to allow his slower comrades to follow along. “William Oh set up some kind of Lord-specific infrastructure to the Burned Stronghold that creates a damage-chain connecting any citizens of the Stronghold. Then, unaware of this, Badur went out on his own and created an outpost to protect the giants from unaffiliated Climbers getting the wrong idea and attacking them.
In the process of doing so, The System registered the crystal giants as farmer-citizens of the Stronghold, which has added them to the damage chain.”
“Now here’s the problem:” Pax said. “Only the Lord can remove citizenship.”
“Even though the paper-pusher can make citizens like that?” Haig asked, snapping his fingers.
“Even though. Revoking citizenship is a rare occurrence that doesn’t require the Lord to act often, but when it does, it’s usually associated with a show of force. I.E., killing or physically removing the former citizen from the Stronghold. They are after all, an Advanced-Class Climber. Only a Lord could do it reliably.”
“So how do we kill the giants? Can you make everyone commit suicide?” Marv asked. “If they all do it at the same time, that should be enough to kill the giants, even if the damage is split up.”
“We’ll call that plan B.” Pax replied.
“Marksman wants the Stronghold as whole as possible for resale. The infrastructure is valuable but the people complete it. It will take years to re-staff the mines, re-start the farms, and balance the flow of commerce if everyone in the Stronghold dies. Not to mention the stigma of trying to resettle a land where everyone mysteriously died suddenly. It might not even happen at all without resorting to importing contract slaves.”
“True.” Marv said, leaning on his elbow.
“So we have to break the damage chain itself. How?” Karmen asked.
“Every upgrade to a Lord’s Stronghold has a physical medium. The Resource Nodes, Town Hall, the Vaults, the Court. It all requires a physical object for The System to latch onto. And if you do enough damage to that physical object, the effect will cease until the building is repaired or replaced by the Lord.”
“So we find the thing making the damage chain and we smash it.” Haig said.
“Yes, but there’s a timing issue.” Pax said. “We need to renew my Charm right before we smash it.”
“Ah.” Haig nodded.
“Then I have the giants kill themselves, the rest of the citizens forget about us, we grab the set and then we’re out.”
“So we need to take a stabbing dummy with us.” Marv clarified. The warrior didn’t look particularly happy with the plan, since it didn’t involve a stand-up fight, but he wasn’t paid to be happy.
“Yes. The Innkeep should work well for it. She’s one of the few citizens who hasn’t gained an Advanced Class yet. A pure civilian build, she should be easy to control.”
“Boring. The Tangled would be-“
“The Tangled is the most obvious possible target, and therefore a bad one. She is physically very powerful and somewhere around level sixty. At least.
According to Badur, William Oh has used his Relic creation powers to bestow her with a powerful anti-charm Relic with soft-set capability, which means she’s not the safe target we thought she was. The girl may even be a trap left behind to catch us. We will avoid her and accomplish the mission without making contact.”
“She did give me a weird look the other day.” Haig said, nodding.
Marv grumbled but he didn’t object.
“Badur, where would the Lord most likely hide the object creating the damage chain?” Pax asked, turning to the Logistician.
The slender, dark-skinned man perked up when his name was called pulling his nose out of his books.
“Oh, probably in the basement of his tower.” He said, closing his book and gesturing to William Oh’s Tower on the map of the Stronghold. It’s the safest place in the Burned Stronghold. A lot less likely to be accidentally discovered than any other place in the since we’re constantly expanding and buildings are being torn up and moved as we expand the septic system, with the exception of that tower.” Badur said, his movements slightly loose, as if he were a bit drunk and keeping his movements as smooth as possible to avoid looking the fool.
“Thank you Badur. Now we need to hurry, because whatever is creating the damage chain is also making them slip free of my control faster than they should.”
“Wait a minute…” Badur said, frowning, peering at them suspiciously. “Who are you guys again?”
“We’re the new sheriff and deputies,” Pax said, gesturing to himself and his companions.
“Oh right.”
“Would you please let us into William Oh’s tower, Badur.
“Sure thing, Sheriff.” Badur said, gesturing for them to follow. Between you and me, the last Sheriff was a moron. Good with drunks though. On the same level, I guess.”
“Get the innkeep,” Pax said to Marv as they headed out into the stree. Everything still looked as lively as before, but there was a strange, oily sensation that covered everything as stream of traffic on the street split out of Pax’s way, unaware they were paying him that much attention. Their unconscious acknowledgement of a single man would make an outside observer’s hair stand on end.
Marv split off from the group while Badur took them to the door, fingering through the keyring on his waist before he found the one he was looking for, opening the black stone door.
“This freakin’ thing,” Badur grunted as he shoved the anchorite door back. The black stone resisted outside influence, which was why each floor of the tower was floating separately from each other.
Kind of quaint, Pax thought as he entered the tower.
Of course a Lord just getting his start wouldn’t have anything too grand. A simple floating tower was already an outstanding achievement for a self-made Lord.
Still, Pax must’ve been influenced by the young man’s legend, because the plain interior was a bit disappointing.
“Show us to the basement.”
Badur acted the tour guide as they walked down the stairs and through the narrow hall.
“That room there is Sacrifice storage. The Vaults are there. That one is food, that one is minerals. There’s an office for paperwork in that one.” Badur said, pointing to each doorway in turn.
“Let’s check the office.” Pax spoke. Perhaps the object in question was some kind of desk or altar.
Badur opened up the office, revealing a simple desk with a comfortable chair and plenty of writing materials. There was a magical lamp made of giant’s bone on the desk that a civilian outside the Tower could retire on if they sold it.
One side of the desk had a stack of unopened letters and the other side had a trashcan mostly filled with the contents of their predecessors.
I should check these letters when I have free time, Pax thought. If I can find any more weaknesses my lord can leverage, he’ll make it worth my while. But for now…
Pax’s gaze moved from the desk to scan the rest of the room, including the bookshelf and map board showing the expansion of the farmland.
If I were to disguise this object, what would I make it look like?
“Hey Pax!” Haig called from the other side of the room.
Hoping he’d found something good, Pax glanced over at the rogue.
Surprising no one, the Rogue was sitting in William Oh’s chair, leaning back and balancing on the rear legs.
“Look, I’m William Oh!” Haig said with a grin.
An instant later, he exploded into meat chunks.
“Probably one of Loth’s pranks.” Badur mused apologetically as Pax stared, slack jawed.