Chapter 115: Reduced to just That.
/If you want to survive the third floor, then the rules are very, very simple. Remember them.
If you’re in danger, go up. If you can’t go up, go far. If you can’t go far, dig deep.
Treat the forest with respect, because its guardians will kill you. The soil is not your friend. The plants are not your friends. Most climbers on the third don’t die from beasts - they die from having desecrated the forest, and getting hunted down by guardians.
So, go up, because the canopy is out of the reach of the forest. Run far, because distance is safety. And dig deep, because if the roots can still reach you, so can the forest.
But there is one upside to this. If you’re running from something other than the forest, then you’re being hunted. And there is nothing the forest favours more than prey on the run.
Understand this. Understand what fairness means, understand that your best friend may change on a dime, understand that if you wish to rest, be strong or hide. You cannot trust the forest, but you must rely on it, anyway. So make sure you are in good standing./
-Windwrought, level 85 Galebringer, entry in the Climber’s Compendium.
- - -
Bile digs us a hole to rest in.
He digs it deep - much deeper than the last one. Deep enough that we can just barely still see the roots at the top. But we do still see them.
Poking up from above is the reminder that this is the third floor. The undergrowth runs deep, but currently, according to Bile, it means us not harm. We’re prey, on the run from a predator, and the forest respects the chase. In fact, it is more likely to protect us than sabotage us here.
After all, it provides for all life in it. Whether that be wolves, bears, mice, or carnivorous plants and mushrooms. And currently, we are rats.
I sit in the cramped room, feeling tiny bits of earth occasionally crumbling off the roof of our crappy above and lodge itself in my hair. The air is stale already, and we’ll run out eventually, but for now, we can last. We can last for a little while, at least.
Even though it’s cramped, that’s not the worst part. It’s me, Norman, Amelie, Opal and Bile. The worst part is not knowing how the others are doing. But it’s fine. It’s fine. I wear my headphones, and I play music. I breathe slowly, until the feelings simmer down.
Right now, I can’t save them.
That’s the truth. The ugly, horrid truth. I hate it. There’s disgust twisting in my stomach at the powerlessness. But despite that, there is only one thing I can do about it: Get stronger.
Opal’s realized it, too. I know it, because I can see that the smile has faded from their face. They sit, legs crossed, blade in their lap, with both hands on the broad side of the sword. Magic pulses between them and item. I watch as the runes on the blade pulse, almost breathing.
At first, Bile had hissed for us to stop, scared that the magic signals would reach the surface, but there were two things stopping that. The first was Norman - his [Unassuming], by nature, is different from most stealth abilities, in that it’s imperfect. It made eyes glance over something, see it as natural, and move on. This also means that the ability itself is nearly undetectable.
By now, Norman can expand the ability to other people around him, sort of like an aura. I can feel it laying on my shoulder, tamping down on the mana signals that would otherwise radiate from us.
The second part is… me. I break any errant magic that drifts off, consuming the fragments of mana and using them to practice. I toy with my new ability, [Memorization], especially. It keeps a better record of everything that I break now that I have it, but here are also some records of what I did before.
And I’ve broken a lot of spells from Respitia’s followers.
So I analyze them. I take a look at how they tick, how they cast, how they channel, and what they do. Ezekiel is different from most priest, that much is obvious from his class name, but he’s also still an avatar of Respitia. His class is most likely a sponsored one, so it must have some similarities.
And so, in that underground bunker, I use my magic. I cast broken, blasphemous bits of magic, stealing from an Eye of the tower, modifying them to see how powerful they’d grow, and then breaking them apart, reabsorbing the magic. I do it over and over and over and over again.
[Memorization 1 > 2]
I learn. Bit by bit, I learn. Each modification I break is added to my mental library, each node and weakness I find market, highlighted, and categorized. My new skill is imperfect, of course. I know that already. It sometimes hurts when I register new information, and the runes twist in strange patterns that are probably due to the butchered half-integration of Bay’s and Inu’s storage skills. But it works.
Even as my head hurts a little, I practice, burning through my mana as I learn, and break. I follow my [Intuition] and my memory, trying to reconstruct whatever skills Ezekiel used from scratch, just so I can learn how to break them. We spend the entire night there, and I catch a few hours of sleep before morning comes.
With Bile’s help, we dig up a few roots to chew on. They taste bad. Bland syrup coats the inside of my mouth, but I eat them anyway, even though they feel disgusting, because I need the energy. Then, we crawl back out of our hole and run some more. The forest parts before us, Bile trusting his senses as he uses them to trace a path.
He checks the earth, he smells at the air, he closes his eyes and just listens. It’d almost be serene, if the knowledge of what we’re running for wasn’t on our minds. But, still, I feel curious, so I ask. “Hey, Bile?”
“Hmmm?” he hums, opening his eyes and facing me. They glimmer with a faint freen light, and he smiles. “Yes, saviour?”
“Okay, yeah, no. Please just use my name,” I say, stiltedly, making Opal huff with amusement. “I wanted to ask why minotaurs are good at finding their way through mazes. See, in our mythology, there was just one minotaur, and he was locked in a maze to keep him away from people.”
Bile snickers. “Snow, did this minotaur of yours also eat people?”
“... Yes,” I admit.
“Things change, things are exaggerated. The maze-story is popular propaganda by minotaurs, so we don’t get locked in cages. If we’re in a maze, finding our way out isn’t too troublesome. In fact, they’re our preferred habitats. Labyrinths have plenty of room to roam, and often find themselves attracting plants and creatures that are reasonable for us to coexist with,” he says. “This floor, this… green maze,” he says the words almost reverently, “should be perfect for us. But the wayfarers,” he spits, “have ruined that. And for that, I will never forgive them. And for that, I will always be grateful to you, Snow.”
I blink at the impassioned speech. I’d never seen him string together more than a few words until now. There is just one more question. “How did minotaur propaganda find its way to Earth, though?” I wonder out loud.
Bile chuffs in amusement. “Stories have a magic of their own. Knowledge exists to be known. Cursed, dark magic will never be extinguished, and neither will the stories people have told. So the tower wills it,” he says, then bows his head. A moment later, the reverence drains from his bovine face. “Now, if you don’t mind terribly, let’s keep moving. I will not be laid in chains again.”
Nodding slightly, I follow him along, as do the others. As we walk at a brisk pace, I continue making and breaking spells, one after another.
[Deconstruction 17 > 18]
[Class up! Nullmage 16 > 17]
My attunement loop keeps running, even as I keep my vessel at about three-quarters filled, practicing as much as I can. Despite that, my mind wanders a little. If minotaurs exist inside the tower, what other myths can we find? I wanna know. I wanna know, dang it.
But at that thought, a small smile blossoms on my face. Knowledge exists to be known. The tower wants me to see all of it, huh? That’s fine by me. My curiosity burns bright enough to make me forget the hate for just a second.
I’ll reach higher. To the very top. And anyone who wants to stop me… they’re obstacles to be removed, simple as that. Even if it means scurrying around.
Chapter 116: Boss
I breathe.
There’s a fire in front of us. I lit it by freeform-casting a crappy version of Jess’ spell. It took me a ton of mana, and it’s a pale imitation, but that’s okay. It still works. There’s a few roots and leaves, as well as chunks of more plantmatter floating in a water-filled pot. Richard stirs it, occasionally adding pinches of salt from that treasure baggie of hers.
[Level Up! 48 > 49]
We fought. There weren’t a lot of enemies, but we did fight them, and we won. There were a few levels, spread across the group. And now, we also have a reason to level.
In front of me hovers the guild menu. It has a single, simple line.
[Petition by Jess Chavez: “Regroup on the fourth floor?” Y/N]
Looking at my level, I nod. Yes. The fourth floor. That makes more sense than trying to find anyone in the green labyrinth.
[Vote confirmed. Yes (7) / No (0). Pending Votes: 4]
Richard hands me a bowl of soup. “Eat,” she says, gently. And she’s right. I need it.
After a few days of marching, I can feel the way my injured legs still baulk at the task. They’re heavy and tired and hurt, but that’s okay. I funnel healing into them whenever I have it available, and bit by bit, the scar tissue is breaking apart, replaced by healthy muscle and flexible skin.
It takes time, though. And calories. I’ve been eating more, since the forest has enough for all of us, though for each kill we also scatter some biomatter on the ground, to rot and compost and feed the forest itself. Most of the time, nothing happens, but sometimes, the Earthmother gives a tiny note of appreciation. Not true gratitude, more a mutual understanding that that is how things should be. Take what you need, leave the rest for scavagers.
There’s a bizarre and primal fairness to it. One that I’m not entirely comfortable with, but I can at least deal with it for the time being. “Thank you,” I tell Richard, taking the food and eating it. Despite everything, this tastes okay. Decent, even. I close my eyes, and let the moment pass, feeling the trickle of mana returning to my vessel.
As soon as it’s back to halfway full, I start practicing again. Breaking and building spellforms I expect to see, building on my library of skills and how to deal with them by asking the others to use theirs on me.
I watch as Norman’s aura spreads around. As Opal Meditates over their sword. As Richard gently snaps as the embers of the fire, and as Amelie sends out yet more puppets.
Out of all of us, she is the most able to deal with this. Her ability has more range than any of ours, and its even able to function autonomously, to some degree. She just sits there, sometimes moving her fingers, and near-invisible strings move through the air. Then, she’ll look through her notifications, and smile.
There’s something sinister about that, knowing that she’s most likely killing things. Or, maybe, just chasing off? For supremacy levels, it likely doesn’t matter that much. She really does work just like a necromancer.
I finish my soup, and then make sure that Amelie has eaten hers, before Richard devours the fire and what’s left of the food. As dust turns to darkness, Bile digs us yet another hole, and we spend the night deep underground, in a chamber with just a little more air than we need. Of course, I’ve also asked Bile to demonstrate his skills for me and added them to my mental library.
Stoneshaping is cool, and I wanna learn it. There’s nothing quite like a good trap. The thought reminds me of Bay, and the fact that my headphones are already almost out again. It’s only been a few days, but frankly, it’s a miracle my phone has lasted that long before needing a recharge, even though I’m using it just as a glorified usb player.
When we meet up on the fourth floor, I need to either learn how to charge them myself, or make sure Bay remains within magic distance at all times. A small sigh leaves my lips. I’ll miss the music when it’s gone, but I’ll miss the quiet more than that. At least I’ll still have [Suppression]. Or maybe one of these days I could just rupture my eardrums, and regrow them when I wanna hear again?
Smiling faintly, I shake my head. What silly thoughts. Reminding myself of the bloody murderand mystery diving I really wanted to do, I close my eyes, and drift off to sleep.
- - -
You’d think waking up buried alive would be easier the second time around. But I really can’t say that it is.
There’s an instinctive need to try and breathe as tons of earth come crashing down on my chest. I gasp for air, but all that finds my lungs is dirt, dirt, and more dirt. It’s heavy. So much heavier than I usually ever realize. From sleeping peacefully one moment, I go to getting crushed the very next.
A moment passes. My heart beats in my chest, straining against the oppressive weight to expand and contract while my lungs refuse to. It pumps once, twice, three times. Then, the earth around me turns liquid, and I bob to the surface a moment later.
The world’s all wrong. The canopy up above, which should have eclipsed the eyes, is gone. Instead, there’s a deep darkness in the sky, and a thousand eyeballs stare down at me. Their invasive voyeurism pierces through my bones, staring at me, eating at me. As if I’m some sort of toy for them to play with, to laugh at, to scorn whenever they please.
It disgusts me. But it’s not the only thing wrong with the world. There’s a purple haze in the air, drifting and sliding across the floor almost like a liquid. When I gasp for air, it fills my lungs with the smell of ozone and lavender. It tasted like rain and a thunderstorm, it tastes like broken promises.
And then, there is a hitch. A moment of quiet. My [Intuition] screams, alarm bells ringing out with burning fury in my head. I throw myself to the ground, and instantly deploy a brutal suppression field around me. It’s as dense and efficient as I can make it, weaving myself in layer after layer of protective weakening magic.
A bolt of lightning slams into me. It draws figures across my skin, through my flesh, sending me spasming and gasping on the ground. The flash of light is so bright it hurts my eyes, and I feel like a fish out of water. The pain whispers of how it smashed through my protections, how it seared me despite everything I put in, and I feel the ache.
Despite that, I focus.
Letting the pain run its course, letting it be part of me, I still fight. The vestiges of arcing electricity in my body lash me with pain, and so, I reach for them. I break them apart, into tiny motes of mana, fuelling my vessel, and regenerating some of my flesh with my healing spell.
Tiny pieces of an ability gather inside my head. [Memorize] records every bit of intel I can gain on the pattern of the attack, and next time, I’ll defend better. I blink the white, blinding pain from my eyes, when there’s another roll of thunder.
It slams into me like a shockwave, the noise making me ears ring. I look over to see Bile behind a broken wall of earth, thrown back by the remaining force. Opal appears somewhere in the distance, wielding their sword. It glows with magic, with the memory of bloodshed, I think, but they don’t see the enemy.
Where is it? What is it?
I focus. Even as a lightning bold arcs across a dozen of Amelie’s puppets, searing their strings to ash, even as I pick pieces off of the remaining energy. I lean into [Observation]. My mana spreads out of me, the attunement loop dropping away and revealing the anger of it all.
My mana’s untamed rage appears, all of a sudden. The very idea of being suppressed, of being caged and stored seems inadequate. It’s alive, it wants to be used, it wants to influence the world. It wants to pour out of me - and I don’t deny it. Instead, I channel and direct it.
There’s a sort of ambient pressure in it all, a faint tingle in the air as more of my mana suffuses it, but it all flows into [Observation], powering that field of knowledge. I reach out with tendrils of ethereal power, grasping, feeling the forest. Another bolt of lightning arcs through the field, and I can almost barely glimpse where it came from.
[Selection] latches onto the scattering remnants of the ability. There’s a tiny, flimsy thread of connection that I follow along, trailing it with my field of [Observation]. It reshapes from a spherical bubble to a single, long tendril, lancing along the connection, seeking, twisting.
Blood pours from my nose. My mana, wild and free, streams forward, further and further, straining my ability to control it. It’s so far out, I can barely feel it anymore, and yet, it still provides feedback to me. I push, and push harder, sending it crawling, inching just a little further, a little closer to the source of the lightning.
And then, I touch something.
[Observation 9 > 10]
My eyes bleed, too, but I point. “That way! About three hundred steps!” I yell, and a moment later, Opal and Norman vanish. Amelie nods gravely, and I see her army of plantlife puppets rise up and stalk forward. She, for her own part, is weaving her strings between the trees, as if creating cocoon-like shields.
And me? I run off, too, Bile by my side, grasping, pulling at that distant presence. Beckoning it to tell me more about it, what it is, what it wants. And then, in one shiver of environmental mana, there is a twist in the tower, and it tells me.
[Congratulations!]
The menu declares it like it’s an accomplishment.
[You have discovered a Boss. The Earthmother approves your battle. She watches.]
And then, I’m close enough for [Observation] to tell me what I’m looking at. It’s a tiger. A large, truck-sized tiger, with skin made of bark, and a crown of blackened vine wreathing around her forehead. Her eyes blaze in azure hues, electricity arcing from them, and she regards us like ants.
The good news? This means we’re probably far enough from the bright priest.
The bad news? Norman laying on the ground, twitching and smoking.
I grit my teeth. Then, my mana lashes out again, not as a tendril or an eye or a gentle touch, but as a weapon. It turns into a cleaver meant to hack apart bones and slams into the tiger’s leg. Bark breaks, for but a moment, and the boss roars. The world fades into the background. There’s nothing left to do but fight.
Chapter 117: Tigress
Lightning lashes out.
It tears through the purple mist, colouring the entire world in a flash of light. My eyes burn from looking at it, and the electricity lances into Opal’s sword. They quiver for a moment, then a dozen runes light up with azure light. Some part of the attack seems to be stored, but it’s just a portion.
The rest lances up their arm. I curse, dashing to Norman, placing a hand over his chest. I wait for half a second, then slam my palm and a healing spell into his harm, forcibly compressing his heart with the slightly superhuman strength I have.
He gasps, his eyes rolling forward, then proceeds to swear up a storm. “Fucking piece of shit motherfucker!” he screams, drawing the eye of the majestic beast. Despite everything, my healing takes hold, ripping more mana out of me, and clinging to his skin in a cloud of mana. Then, I sprint to Opal.
A wall of earth rips up around me, and I’m a moment from breaking it, when a bolt of lightning does that for me. Bile’s hastily erected shield explodes, sending me sprawling forward, luckily towards Opal. A dozen mana-barriers of Norman appear around us, and I quickly pour more mana into healing my friend.
Opal, for their part, has a higher heart-score than Norman. They look at me, then flash a bright grin. Their sword reappears in their hands. “Thanks Snow! Now get out of here!” they yell, then blink aside.
More lightning lances through a dozen mana barriers. Blue streaks of arcing power stab towards me even as I’m already moving. They crash into my field of [Suppression], adjusted by what I know, made to counter the attack, and still it stabs through. I toss [Deconstruction] at it, too, and yet, with just one cast, the boss overwhelms all my guards.
Weakened arcane power jolts through me, sending my limbs to the ground in a spazzing tangle. My mouth clenches up, and for just a second, I can’t even look around. And yet, my mana listens.
Even when my own body betrays me, my mana listens.
My skin blisters and blackens with lightning. In a way that is eerily similar to the mage in Ezekiel’s party, almost as if the Earthmother was trying to prepare us for facing him, the electricity tears through me. Smoke hisses up from charred skin, and again, I take that energy apart, then cast a lingering, powerful healing spell.
Despite everything, I still have mana to spare. My vessel is powerful, now, still half filled, and so, when I can move again, I sprint, and throw another combo of spells at the beast. It’s my typical combo, this time.
[Selection] to create a tether, and amplify my own abilities. [Suppression] to weaken it, targeting its joints and weak spots with brutal efficiency, using both the amplification of [Selection], and the information provided to me by [Observation]. The skills sink into the boss’ hide, seeping through dense flesh and turning it brittle.
[Deconstruction 18 > 19]
[Nullmage 17 > 19]
Again, its attention turns to me, but this time, I’m ready. I launch myself to the side as fast as I can. A bolt of electricity courses through the air, but misses, its activation slowed for just a heartbeat by my own skills. Despite that, I still tear into it with [Deconstruction], stealing mana from the attack, and adding more fragments to [Memorize].
Slowly, bit by bit, I’m taking stock of the skill. Opal suddenly blinks above its head, and swings their sword down from their blink spot, appearing with little to no wind-up. Blue runes light up along their sword, and I feel mana pass from them as they activate the same skill twice, yet in two different ways.
First, an [Echo] of the boss’ attacks flares, a bolt of lightning that cracks into her weakened hide at the same time as Opal’s blade does. Then, a second [Echo], powered by the strike itself, tearing into flayed muscle. A spear of earth rises from below it, but the boss simply vanishes backwards.
Except, by now, Amelie’s puppets have marched in. Suddenly, the plants around the ticket start dancing on string. They close a circle around the boss, forming lines of thorns and spikes and plating.
Any single one of them would be trivial, but with a legion of them, even this great cat finds herself caged.
I breathe. Bile slinks forward, only to be shot back by lightning striking the earth before him. The boss hisses, as if trying to make us stay back, launching more and more arcs from all around her. And yet, each one that misses or sinks harmlessly into barriers lets me learn. One almost touches Opal, but they blink.
Then, forgotten by almost everyone, I notice Norman, right next to the beast. He draws a knife, sharp, probably given to him by Mike, and on instinct, I [Select] it, giving it a chunk of my mana to imbue it with [Deconstruction].
[Inscription 14 > 15]
[Job up! Imbuer 10 > 12]
My vessel pulses. The points take it up to 249. That… feels big. The first supremacy threshold was at 10, the second at 25. So perhaps, once the stat ticks over…
I breathe, focusing on the fight. Norman’s imbued dagger sinks into the flesh with prodigal ease. Muscles unravel slightly at its touch, as if shrinking away, torn into shrapnel of mana. Part of that powers the imbuement, and part of it flows into me. My epitaph is stronger than ever, feeding me a bigger chunk of the gains.
Another bolt of lightning instantly arcs out at Norman, lancing through his barriers like paper… but then, part of it vanishes. I throw mana at it, a huge amount, and watch the lightning diminish with [Deconstruction]. Then, it quivers and trembles as [Suppression] stalls it.
By the time it lances into the floor with a thundercrack, Norman is elsewhere. He’s sweating and panting, terribly afraid, and yet he fights.
More puppets pour into the clearing. Slower, stronger ones, that don’t hesitate to throw themselves at the boss. The tigress growls and snaps at them, tearing their bodies apart with claws and lightning, but it is not enough.
Their improvised and biological weapons start to hurt her. Amelie’s small army pours onto the giant beast, and stabs with anything they can find, tearing old wounds ajar and adding new ones. The tigress snarls, shaking herself, and the odies fall off her like rain, but the wounds remain.
Thorns lodged in her skin alongside javelins and crude spears. Threads wrapped around her, binding limbs together loosely. Her tail waves through the air in displeasure, perhaps fear.
Then, her eyes change colour. Azure becomes purple. The mist, which smelled of ozone and lavender, suddenly makes me choke on it. I cough, hacking it up as much as possible, but it’s already wormed its way into my body, an insidious agent only waiting to activate. And, for the first time in forever, I feel my mana tightening and seizing up, as if submitted to electric shock.