So…my trap specialist, whose ONLY job was to make and find traps…didn’t see the ‘prank’ which rendered him into soup. Pax thought, eating his lunch in the main square, the highest traffic area he could think of.
Badur’s lack of reaction to Haig’s sudden case of explosion wasn’t an issue. In fact, it was a good thing. One of Pax’s Abilities severely dulled critical thinking and caused the victim to accept things at face value.
It served as a safety net if they ever slipped up and acted out of character, and there wasn’t a human alive who never slipped up.
No, the real problem was that no one knew how many more of these ‘pranks’ the kobold had in store for them.
Oh, and Pax’s information regarding the kobold was wrong: It wasn’t a vassal of William Oh, it was a peer, with outrageous Abilities on par with the legend himself.
Installing a deadly trap that could instantly kill an Advanced Class Rogue –which William Oh was reputed to be– was apparently a joke at this point.
This is going to slow things down tremendously. Pax thought. Luckily, by the very nature of the protection cast on the citizens of the Burned Stronghold, Pax had access to the ideal indestructible trap-sounders, so all this cost them was time…
And Haig.
Above, Will and the others spent the night playing cards with a bit of light provided by Loth’s torchbugs.
They had to sit in a triangle knee-to-knee in order to see the cards. It was slightly uncomfortable and they would rather be sleeping, but the Floor itself made it the best option.
When night fell, Jorn set up a strict encirclement of summons around their rest area, which prevented any more attacks.
Realizing that it couldn’t attack them directly, the entity in the mist began making voices emerge, from whispers promising that the others were imposters to deafening roars designed to startle them and sap their energy.
They ignored it by playing a vicious game of Uno until the mist brightened again.
They were forced to have a sleepless night, but their stress levels weren’t too bad, so Will called it a draw with The Entity.
“Where are we supposed to get XP, even if we find the Key Site?” Jorn wondered aloud as they got dressed in the morning, one hand on the rope connecting them.
“This Floor has centralized intelligence.” Loth said, holding the rope with her tail. “I get the feeling that the resources of this floor are centralized but also hidden. Like a buried clam, we’re going to have to find it, dig it up, pop the shell open and suck it down.”
“Hey guys, I found something over here!” Loth’s voice came through the mist.
“It’s trying to desensitize us so we can’t trust anything.” Jorn’s voice replied from the mist when nobody responded to the first statement.
“You got those mixed up,” Jorn said with a scoff. An instant later, Will jabbed him with an elbow.
“Don’t give The Entity any free advice, okay?”
“Yes Milord.”
“Step one: we’re going to clear the Key Site.” Will said, toweling off. “Step two: having secured an escape route, we’re going to dedicate our time to digging up The Entity.
“Ooh, I’m so scared,” A dumb-sounding voice called back.
“Do I really sound like that?” Will asked.
“People sound different when they hear themselves from other sources. It’s the resonance in your nasal passages that make you sound different to yourself.” Loth said.
“I didn’t say that.” Loth said.
Will shared a silent glance with the other party members holding the rope. Or at least, he glanced at where they would be, washing and changing a few arm’s lengths down the rope.
It was difficult to tell who said what without bringing them all in for a huddle, which The Entity would be listening in on, giving it more information about them.
Will decided to let it pass. It didn’t matter who said it. They just needed to get to the Key Site and then see about pinning down The Entity.
Thankfully Will could see the Key Sites on his map. They stood out on his map as perfect pyramids, at odds with the terrain of the rest of the Floor.
“Is that people? This way! I know you’re probably suspicious, but just walk this way! You’re almost there!” An unfamiliar voice spoke as they approached they Key Site.
Trap? Loth signed with her free hand, leaning close enough for Will to see it.
Will shrugged. Could be. Could be another double fakeout to make them steer clear of the key site. Could be a triple fake out.
At this point, it was best to just keep moving straight, assuming the worst and hoping for the best.
“There should be a guidepost with rope nearby, just grab onto it and follow it out of the mist!”
Will groped around, but didn’t catch onto anything. They kept approaching anyway and-
Between one step and the next, the mist blew away, leaving Will staring ahead at the Key Site, blinking at the first sight he’d perceived that wasn’t shrouded in white in a day.
The pillar of blue miasma was dead center in a column of clear air, holding back the mist for nearly five hundred feet in every direction.
Up above, the sun was just beginning to show through the hole in the mist, reflecting most of its light off the wall of white that surrounded the Key Site.
On the ground were small stone buildings, along with rows of crops.
There was a graveyard to the south, with half a dozen gravestones.
Most importantly, there were humans. Climbers.
“Abyss, you made it! Did the guideposts work?” A human man with dark hair and a mangy look asked, peering into Will’s eyes.
“More importantly, Tell me one of you is a farmer. Or a druid, maybe? Water mage? Logistician? Can you make FOOD!?”
“leave ‘em be, Earl.” A rough woman said, shoving this Earl fellow aside and grunting as he tumbled backwards, light as a feather. The man clearly was starving.
“More importantly, did you bring booze?” She asked, an enchanted sword hanging at her waist.
“William Oh.” Will said, offering his hand.
“Emma Velvet.” The woman said, shaking Will’s hand as four more Climbers popped their heads out of the stone hovels and came trotting toward them.
“Yeah, but she ain’t that smooth,” ‘Earl’ said with a tired groan as he pushed himself up. His gear was dilapidated. Everything except his Relics had partially rotted away, giving him a strange look as his frayed undercloths peeked out from beneath the fine gilded breastplate.
Vagrants
Trapped here by The Entity, Climbers have formed a tiny community on the outskirts of the Key Site.
As they are not blocking the upward flow of Miasma, There is no reward for their removal.
“You get the message?” Earl asked, taking his chance to shake Will’s hand while introducing himself.
“Says there’s nothing for us to do.” Will said.
“Yeah, The mist is a nasty one. It keeps all the Key Sites clear so you can’t leave.”
“What about the ones north and south of here?” Will asked. “It said there were a bunch that needed clearing.”
“And you probably aimed for the one in the center to keep your options open, right? Us too. If you try to go from here to one of the other Key sites, it clears the monsters off it before you can arrive to make sure you can’t ever leave.”
“Dick move.” Jorn said.
“Hah! Indeed.” Earl said before his gaze sharpened. “Now can any of you make food? I hate to say this but if you can’t we’re gonna have a problem. There’s only enough farmland here to sustain roughly half a dozen people at near-death, even with our Resistance. When you run out of food we’re gonna have to fight over who gets to stay and who goes out into the mist. Our skinny asses will be the losers.”
Will opened his mouth to deny he’d ever do that.
“It’s fine, we did it to the last group that was here.” Earl said, his gaze lingering on the mist.
“We used to have a druid who could grow enough to keep everyone fed, but the mist is always listening and picks off the support Classes.” Emma said. “It sent a raid in the middle of the night.”
“Did they bring any food?” one of the four Climbers asked.
“Are they gonna kill us?”
“One hit to the back of the head if you wouldn’t mind.” An emaciated Climber said, tapping the back of her head with a bladed hand.
Will glanced at Loth.
You wanna take this? Will thought.
“…I can make food.” Loth said, setting her barrel down beside her and pulling out a steak-bug.
Will had never in his life seen someone become more popular, faster than Loth became with those six starving Climbers.
Make that seven, Will thought as he spotted a tiny figure watching from the doorway of one of the hovels.
What are your Classes?” Will asked.
They ignored him, staring at the steak-bugs that Loth had begun roasting.
Will decided to let them be until they had eaten.
A single steak-bug per person and they were groaning in pain, their shrunken stomachs unused to such heavy fare.
Once they recovered enough to speak, Will got their stories out of them. None of them were from the same Party originally. Each had come from a separate Party that had been picked off, led astray and generally toyed with by the entity in the mist.
None of them had flexible Abilities by design. They had been responsible for brute-force combat. Nukers, Warriors, Tanks. The casters and logisticians with Abilities that helped survive or combat the mist were picked off early and The Entity kept the rest of them alive and clustered around the Key Site, acting as a sort of meat-locker for when it finally decided to partake.
The fact that Will’s entire Party made it to the Key Site was a subject of much amazement.
“It’s probably not going to take this lying down,” Earl said, snapping off some legs for later before licking the steakbug shell clean.
Earl licked the last of the oil, glancing down at the empty shell.
“…Fuck it.” Earl shrugged and crunched off a segment of the shell with a vacant stare, carefully chewing and swallowing the chiton despite its dubious nutritional value.
“You can expect it’ll send a group after Loth now that it knows she can feed us.”
“Good. We could use the XP.” Loth said with a faint smile.
“You guys are confident. What are you, a Lord?”
“I am,” Will said.
“Seriously?” Earl said, stiffening.
Emma sank down to her knees and started crying. The little person hiding in the hut emerged, tottering up to the emaciated Warrior and hugging her. It was a twisted abomination, as though a toddler had been melted by candle wax.
Miasma baby, Will thought. That was what happened when someone brought a child to term while corrupted by miasma and by some miracle it survived.
Will’s gaze drifted towards the graveyard, noting their size spacing was rather small.
How long have you been here?
“If it pleases you milord. Umm…could you grant us Doors to the Floor below?” Earl asked.
“I’d be happy to.” Will said. “But you wouldn’t survive anywhere above seventh Floor. You all might be high levels, but you’re starving.”
“That’s not wrong, but even so. If we have to die, we’d rather not give the mist the satisfaction of ending us. We want it to know we got away.” Emma said.
“Don’t leave, mommy!” A sobbing child’s voice came from the wall of mist behind them. “I’m still alive! You have to find me, Please!”
“FUUUCK YOU!” Emma roared, lunging to her feet. Earl’s fingertips yanked her back by her collar an instant before she charged into the mist.
Will watched in shock as Emma gradually recomposed herself.
“We forgot ourselves. Let’s bring the conversation further from the mist.” Earl said, guiding Emma back towards the center of the clearing.
Maybe the entity is trapping them here to eat their children. That…that needs to stop. Will had viewed the entity in the mist as a cunning enemy, but this was so much worse. It felt like there weren’t any more lines to cross after something tried to kill and eat you, but apparently there were.
“So I didn’t run into any guideposts or rope,” Will said as they retreated from the mist.
“Damn. Risked my life to set those up and it just…waited until I left to tear them all up.” Earl said patting the melted toddler on the head as they walked.
“How long have you been here?” Will asked.
“About…fifteen years.” Earl said.
“Let’s talk about how we’re gonna kill this thing.” Will said.
“Like I’ve never heard that before. You’re not the first brave kid to come through here talking about how you’re gonna kill the mist.”
“I am the first Lord to come through, though, am I not?” Will asked.
Earl shared a look with the other survivors.
“Prove it. Talk is cheap. Buy one of us a Door.”
“I’m not going to let you kill yourselves, but how about this? Will asked, giving each of them a quest to raise their hand for 1 XP.
Influence 53772->47766
Each of the six Climbers raised their hands, glancing between each other in acknowledgement.
“Alright, milord, Let’s talk.”
“How do you feel about scorched earth?” Will asked, glancing at the miasma-tainted toddler clinging to Earl’s leg and staring up at them while chewing on one of Earl’s steakbug legs.
The Entity didn’t deserve a proper fight.