Floor Four_Apple's Dungeon Adventure [Crafting Progression LitRPG]

Apple’s heart feels like it leaps into her throat as her foot finds nothing but air as she steps into the fourth floor. The fall is even more terrifying for her as the blue light that had permeated the third floor has vanished, leaving her in near pitch black. Her literal saving grace comes when she finds her falling is slower than she expected, not even hurting anything when she lands.

Blinking at the sudden darkness as if to drive it back, Apple notices that she can’t see the ceiling and that the darkness is enhanced by a fog that stays a slight distance away from her at all times. The floor is cushioned slightly by damp moss and patches of what seem like an underwater grass like the others she’d found, neither of these show as anything special under Inspect.

Slowing her breathing that had gotten a bit panicky, she reaches around to take her Friendship Bracelet out of her hair, moving it back to her wrist to try to push the darkness back somewhat. What she didn’t expect was a similar glow to appear ahead of her in the darkness. Then another off to her right, one in the air, several more of these strange lights appear and also do nothing to dispel the darkness. Are they here to guide her through the floor? And why does she feel lighter somehow?

Testing that she’s not being slowed by clenching and unclenching her hand, Apple’s next test almost causes her to shout out. She’s unsure if it’s from fear or excitement but when she jumps, she manages to keep herself quiet as her single half hearted leap brings her almost level to the dim red doorway she’d just fallen from. Dropping back to the ground is the same as when she entered, somewhat safe as long as she doesn’t land funny.

She can float now? Not exactly floating but she’s much less tethered to the ground than she usually is. Is this how the Piranha Shark feel all the time? Smiling despite the terrifying darkness of the floor, Apple takes a few steps towards the nearest light, hand outstretched. If the lights are here to guide her, then where’s the challenge in this room? Perhaps Sahuagin hunt in the darkness somehow?

Her steps falter as she notices one of the lights has dimmed. Watching that light carefully it slowly dims more and more until vanishing entirely from her vision. Had it gone out or- The light she was approaching moves, heading to Apple’s left and getting brighter. Her heart, that had decided to be so very adventurous all of a sudden, seems to wobble in fear and begins beating much faster.

Apple pulls her Friendship Bracelet off her wrist, hastily stuffing it into her belt pouch and sealing that quickly. Crouching after that she observes the light getting closer, moving lazily side to side as it does, reminding her very heavily of…

A fish with very similar proportions to the Piranha Shark swims into view, large mouth agape with razor sharp teeth lining its mouth, the light coming from a strange appendage extending from its forehead and ending in a luminescent green glow at the tip. It seems her saving grace in this specific situation is that the creature’s eyes are a milky white, no part of it moving and showing that the thing is very likely unable to see.

Wrestling control over her heart having migrated into her head to hide, Apple lets out a slow and quiet breath, drawing in a new lungful of air just as quietly. She focuses on the creature as it passes barely a few inches from her shoulder.

Deep-Sea Anglerfish

That, quite frankly, is not very helpful at all. ‘Angler’ like a fisherman? So it catches other fish with that light? She remembers her little fishing pole she’d made, using the Glowmoss as bait and realises she’d also forgotten that on the floor she’d made it. That’s not a huge loss but it still reinforces her need to try to remember her things better. ‘Deep-Sea’ could just relate to where it’s found, which gives Apple pause. She knows that Godsent somehow come out of the same place as they enter the dungeon, but does that mean the dungeon itself has taken her deep under the ocean somewhere? If so, she is so far outside the town border that she could probably say that every step she’s taking deeper into the dungeon is the furthest she’s ever been from home. At that thought the feeling of excitement comes back.

So maybe the name actually was helpful. She gives another apology to the Godsent abilities for doubting them once again.

With the Anglerfish behind her now and with the floor of moss muting her footsteps, Apple starts to scoot left and towards the wall, not wanting to get lost in the darkness by just walking right into it. With her hand running over the wet rock as she walks, she considers that her Stealth is likely to rank up on this floor, but with the creature's blindness and her not making any noise, it feels like that would be too easy. The Anglerfish don’t even know to be looking out for her, but is that how the skill works?

Deciding that it doesn’t matter, Apple continues on her slow journey to wherever this wall is going to take her. At one point she has to stop and crouch down as one of the Anglerfish gets a bit too close for comfort, it’s gaping maw staring her down for the longest moment. When that terrifying encounter is over she continues to creep her way around the room. She can feel that the wall curves somewhat but not to what extent, it could be a massive cave with an infinite amount of darkness above her for all she can see.

Many minutes later, enough that Apple gave up counting, she notices movement without a light and cautiously approaches it, surprised to find that it’s something she recognises. A smaller Piranha Shark, potentially somewhere between the size of the parents and the smaller Piranha. It spots her and makes its way over, moving sedately but seeming curious.

Reaching out, Apple pets the strange fish, almost expecting it to purr at the touch. It seems to neither mind nor appreciate the affection. She wants to ask if it’s lost but can’t find the words at the moment. She also doesn’t want to alert the Anglerfish to their location, this little Piranha Shark could be gobbled up just as easily as she might be. She resolves this issue by patting it a little more before getting an idea.

Pulling part of the Glowmoss from her inventory, Apple clumps it down into a ball and holds it towards the small shark. The creature responds to the glowing ball, its lower jaw moving up a little in either excitement or an attempt to chomp its teeth. Rolling her eyes at the antics she tosses the ball into the open mouth of the creature, smiling as it does that chomping motion a few times and seems to swim a little more energetically.

Just as she was about to proclaim the two best friends forever and tell this simple creature her entire life story, the fish swims off towards the direction Apple had just come from, vanishing into the darkness.

Right then. That hurts a little.

Deciding that friendship between a large dungeon fish and herself won’t work out, she continues around the cave, hand to the wall and a hope that one day fish and people relations are able to weather such storms as the one raging in her heart. Is she personifying her heart now that she’s gone mad? Really, it could be something worse, at least she isn’t personifying her backpack.

Continuing her journey, she does wonder why the little shark didn’t start glowing like she had before when she’d eaten one of her little creations. And also realises that could have been a very bad thing to happen if light attracts other things in the cave. She shouldn’t have risked that but at least it turned out okay.

She lets her mind wander as she keeps an even pace around the room, thinking over her new crossbow and how best to create bolts for it. She’d seen the difference between bolts and arrows but really all she would need for it is some of the thinner Coral Sticks she collected and some sort of… Thing to make the cross… Section… Bit. See, here she is, not knowing words again. The feather bit that arrows have, the feathering. She doesn’t exactly have an abundance of feathers, so she figures anything light that she can layer would do the trick. Some of the stripped leather she has might work, she could layer those easily enough and use some of her string and a little glue to seal the cuts in the sticks she’d need to make. The tips… She doesn’t have much in the way of stones or metal to make those, so she could probably just sharpen the end of the stick and hope that’s good enough. That actually sounds like something she could get into the routine of if she has time. Which…

She stops, looking around at the darkness with their several dots of light denoting the Anglerfish in the mists. She’s been walking for quite a while now and hasn’t encountered any tunnel or offshoot of this cave. The curve of the wall isn’t so little that she’d expect it to go on this long. Giving it a few more minutes she finds again that nothing seems to have changed. So the cave is what she’d first thought?

Apple looks up the wall, frowning slightly when her eyes catch on a faint red light a bit further in the distance. Rushing over she feels her heart beat slightly faster, is this the exit? But if this is the exit does this mean she has to fight those Anglerfish? She really doesn’t want to fight the Anglerfish. Even if they’re blind, there’s no way she can defeat so many of the things given how many lights she’s seen. There has to be another way, right?

But, if this isn’t the exit, it has to be the entrance, right? She’d just circled all the way around and the exit is somewhere else. That’s at least a hope she can hold onto whilst she drifts further into madness. She checks her knapsack for signs of coming to life and when she finds none she tries to come up with a plan.

OPPAI has helped her so far, but Observe is a bit tricky when she’s barely able to see. Her current Plan is to explore the darkness somehow and find the exit that could be in the centre of the cave somewhere. Her Prepare would be… She’s found either the entrance or exit, and so she needs a way back to this spot particularly, and the only thing she can reason will help her is more light. If the Anglerfish are attracted to that, then… Well, she dies a very gruesome death or ends up living the rest of her life in the belly of the thing.

She pulls out a single knitting needle, sets her knapsack face down to use the back of the thing as a rolling board, then carefully pulls out a few clumps of Glowmoss from her inventory. When the Anglerfish don’t charge her, she gets to rolling more of the long tube that she’d created before, starting to make the basis of another spool of Glowmoss Thread. She’d not made much and her friendship bracelet and handkerchief took up most of it. So now she’s back to crafting, and in the dark this time. It’s still a little therapeutic despite the dire circumstances she finds herself in. Watching her mother create things was something she liked doing before bed, and now being able to do these things herself is one of those new feelings she’d been having, a difficult one to pin down. She’ll think on that later.

With plenty of her Glowmoss turned into thread, she ties one end of it around a stick before digging that stick into a clump of moss. With her marker in place she takes a breath in, then moves into the darkness.

Unravelling the thread as she goes, Apple is definitely not scared at all, the fact that her hands are shaking isn’t relevant and she most definitely doesn’t have to pause every few steps to force herself to breathe. The only thing grounding her at the moment is the literal ground, given that she already can’t see the wall she’d moved away from nor any ceiling of any sort.

One of the Anglerfish gets close again, forcing Apple to step to the side and allow it to pass, wanting nothing more than to just leave this dungeon now. If she could skip the next floor that would be fine by her actually. Even letting her go back to the last floor would be nice. But since when has this dungeon been nice?

She gives a gentle tug on the string to check that it’s still secure before continuing, almost walking right into a large stone pillar. Stopping before she walks into rock and alerts everything around, she stares up, following the pillar into the darkness. It’s about as thick as herself if she stretched her arms out and strangely cylindrical. The issue right now is that she can’t tell if this pillar is the centre, or just one pillar of many in the darkness. And what is it supporting? Are there platforms up in the darkness? That could be where the exit is or more enemies.

She does have strangely enhanced leaps…

Deciding to add ‘reckless’ to her rapidly growing list of traits she loops the thread around the pillar, ties it off and looks up. She can’t unravel the thread as fast if she’s moving with the jump, so that goes away in her knapsack for now as she prepares for even more adventure into the unknown.

Without really pausing to overthink, she bends her knees and springs into the air, needing to suppress a happy laugh threatening to escape her as she feels like she’s flying. Her jump does slow and peak however, letting her see a little better in the area for some reason, maybe the fog is heavy and settled at the bottom of the room? She has time to think over that as she falls back to the ground, bracing herself before landing a little heavy into the moss floor.

An issue is she lets out a slightly pained noise of exertion. Which causes several of the lights nearby to move sharply, the Anglerfish turning in her direction. That’s great. No, wait, the opposite.

She rushes to move from her spot as quietly as possible, a difficult thing when she’s panicking. The lights get closer at a much faster speed than they’d done previously, Apple nearly making the dumb mistake of throwing herself away from where she was crouched. Instead she repeats the trick she’d used against the Piranha Shark, laying down on her front this time.

The Anglerfish pass by and over her, several converging on the spot she’d just been. When two get close they start making terrifying snarl noises that feel gross in a way she can’t describe. Nasally? She stops trying to find the right word as she spots more movement. This time not from any of the Anglerfish but from a familiar looking Piranha Shark. Her friend! Oh no. Run away, friend!

Waving her hands to make the fish go away in case the Anglerfish notice it somehow does nothing. That does nothing because fish don’t have hands- She thinks of the Sahuagin, immediately proving herself wrong. Okay, most fish don’t have hands, especially not this specific type of Piranha.

Groaning inwardly once more, Apple pushes herself up and to a crouched position before tensing her legs and springing into the air right at the Piranha Shark, intending to get it moving away to save the thing.

What she didn’t expect was the silly fish to swim more towards her through the air, throwing her trajectory off so that she has to grab hold of the creature’s scales, her momentum halted and leaving her suspended in the air, holding onto a large Piranha. Which isn’t generally ideal in most scenarios.

Her Piranha friend seems to take this at their cue to get out of the danger zone as the Anglerfish start snapping at each other. And because Apple is holding on she gets a free ride up into the darkness.

She does consider letting go, the Piranha is probably just taking her to its favourite spot in the dark, but she still feels like falling from such a height would be deadly even if she’d proven to herself it’s easily survivable. Her persistence in hugging a fish seems to pay off as she looks down, finding that from above the mist is rather easy to see through. She can spot the red light of the entrance, the lights of the many Anglerfish around the room, even the six pillars rising up into the ceiling that’s visible now.

She can also see a blue shimmer. The exit!

Trying to guide her fish friend is futile, the creature clearly not understanding her intent or her useless squirming as she attempts to hold on still. It does however seem to have a destination in mind as it dips back into the darkness and away from the blue light that would have helped her escape this floor.

The Piranha seems to know where it’s going as it swims forwards through the darkness and towards one of the walls, twisting slightly and wiggling through a horizontal gap in the rock, taking her through with it and into a new tunnel. This tunnel is lit in a similar manner to the previous floor; a blue that seeps from the very walls itself. It dips up and down a few times before finally coming to a stop at a new sight. A shimmering golden exit.

Her fish ride stops, allowing Apple to drop from her friend and stare at this strange portal that makes no sense. Red is for no go, blue is for yes go, gold?

She’d seen the exit! She doesn’t have to deal with this golden portal. She can just go back the way she came and head in the general direction of the blue light she saw. The mystery of this golden door doesn’t need to entrap her, doesn’t need to pull her in with curiosity and spectacle. What could be behind it? It’s special, Godsent always think gold is special. Does she? Does she think like they do now? Is this what her borrowed power is doing to her? Changing her mind?

She realises she’d been pacing, the Piranha watching her. She’s overthinking, panicking somewhat. She can’t keep taking detours. She needs to get out of this dungeon so she can go back to her life! To her…

Apple turns, staring into the golden light. But what if? One question that’s causing her to step closer. What if? What if there’s food behind this? What if there’s water? What if this is a secret path out?

Groaning, she looks at her fishy friend. It seems to stare at her, encouraging maybe? She can’t blame the poor thing. She pulls another bit of Glowmoss from her inventory, balling it up before throwing it into the creature's maw. She rolls her eyes at the happy noise it makes, patting the thing as she looks back at the golden light.

This is her adventure. She decides where she goes.

Apple steps into the golden light.

You have entered a Challenge Room!

Complete the challenge before the time runs out. Faster times mean better prizes!

Blinking at the sudden change in lighting, going from the dark of the cave to the blue of the tunnel was fine, but now with it feeling like she’s almost in the sun again is a bit difficult to adjust to.

Her first thought is that she’s facing a mountain made of coral and rock, the second tells her that is very unlikely. But as she looks around at the coral platforms to her left and right, circling around a massive structure that leads so far up into the golden light coming from the exceedingly high up ceiling, she figures out the challenge pretty quickly. They want her to get to the top? She’s… Tired.

Another panel replaces the first that had appeared, showing several zeroes for some reason. When the zeroes start to increase Apple realises it’s a timer and her body starts moving without her saying so. Well, no, she definitely starts running actively, her mind throwing away the idea of how tired she is right now and focusing on that potential prize. The dungeon hasn’t always given her what she needs but it has given her useful things almost every time.

The first obstacle seems to just be jumping from coral platform to coral platform, each one of the different coloured stepping stones raising slightly each time.

Apple hadn’t ever actually had to run before today, she’d never even felt the need to move anywhere very quickly. But recently she’d been rushing around for various reasons, usually away from or towards deadly dangers, but now? She’s racing for a prize. That somehow gives her more energy than she’d felt previously. She can do this!

Almost throwing herself off a platform, Apple manages to stop as she realises the next jump isn’t something she can pull off. Great. What sort of trick is this? Get her running just to mess with her? No. That’s far too defeatist for her. Look around. The gap is too wide but there’s a strange branch of sorts above her between the two platforms. What’s she meant to do with that?

The timer continues moving up so she decides to just try something. Backing up she gets as good a run up as she can before throwing herself forwards, arms up and grabbing onto the pole, letting her momentum throw her forwards before releasing her grip on the thing.

She barely makes the landing, wincing as she inspects her hands, finding them a little scuffed from just that movement. Should she have made gloves instead of armour? It's a little too late to regret that now. It is strange her Health didn’t protect from this. Superficial damage can go through it perhaps? So maybe she isn’t immune to splinters.

Getting back to running, she spots a few more of those jumps ahead of her, resolving herself to use a little more of her collected leather kelp once she’s done with this. It might not help entirely but the coolness of the kelp might soothe the scrapes. Well, if she falls the floor below her is a mess of coral platforms and, if she misses those with her fall, the water below with deadly looking coral bushes will probably break her fall.

She jumps, swinging over another gap and lands a little more gracefully than previous. Did the Piranha Shark know about this place? Is it normal for them to guide Godsent to these things? Or is it her title in effect? The tunnel could be found with trial and error but she doubts anyone would find it before the exit.

Another jump, a little easier this time but still scraping her palms painfully. She does remember pricking herself slightly with her bone needle but she’d never checked her health out after that happened. Her questions about how all this works are just piling up.

Continuing up the slowly tightening spiral of this challenge, Apple notices a hole in the wall across from the platforms just in time to avoid the monster that jumps from it. A new one at that. Its long body easily throws its needle fanged mouth out of the hole it had been hiding in and just over the platform she had avoided leaping to.

Inspect comes out as fast as Apple can focus on the monster.

Giant Moray Eel

Right then. Not even slightly helpful.

She watches the Eel slowly retract into its hole, the monster’s eye glaring at her like she’d really messed up its day. Apple waits for it to get back into the hole before backing up to try the jump once more. Just as she’s about to leap the Eel shoots out of the hole once more, causing her to skid and come to a stop at the edge of the coral platform she’s on, wiggling her arms as she teeters over the fall to her likely death.

The Eel starts to pull back and Apple throws herself forwards and onto the platform it moves from, hoping that it can only attack when it can throw itself out the hole it lives in. Her hope pays off as the Eel doesn’t try to eat her and even lets her jump to the next safe platform. This is horrible! Why would Godsent do this!? Even if they can’t really die, the experience of it can’t exactly be pleasant!

Spotting more of those Eel holes, Apple considers just leaving, surely no prize could be worth this?

She keeps moving, slightly annoyed at her own insistence to keep moving forwards and half blaming OPPAI for this. No, OPPAI had kept her alive this entire time, she’s just frustrated for some reason. Couldn’t possibly be the situation she’s currently in.

Two more of the Eel block her path, having to bait them to attacking before she can keep moving. And then there’s another pole jump that has her once more considering turning back. She doesn’t but she keeps considering it.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

When she jumps to another platform she realises she’d not put enough power into her leap and the platform was a little farther apart than all the previous ones. She lands heavily into the side of the platform, shouting out in pain whilst scrambling to grab hold of the coral. Just before she falls her fingers grip the edge of the ledge, causing her to swing slightly with her feet kicking to find purchase in the air.

Her Health reads 97% now, showing how sharp those edges really are and almost making her feel bad for every Sahuagin she’d struck with the edge of her shield. Almost. But not really.

Mind whirring to find a way to save herself, her foot finally catches on the wall and part of the ‘stem’ of the coral. With that and her Godsent strength she manages to get her elbows onto the platform, then gets her torso up, finally scrambling onto the platform and letting her breathing get away with itself.

What the quack is this challenge?

Her use of the Godsent curse has her giggling now, drawing in air through her nose as she tries to calm herself. That timer is still going and so she should do the same.

Pulling out some of the Glowmoss from her inventory she quickly wraps it around her hands to put some sort of barrier between her flesh and the rock pole things ahead. Once that feels secure she gets herself ready once more. She’s probably not getting first prize but she’ll be content with anything as long as it’s useful.

A pole jump and then an Eel come next, another of those slightly wider gaps after that, then, as she looks ahead of herself on the curve, it seems like something new is approaching.

Thanking herself for stopping to get the moss hand wraps, Apple pauses for a second at the stretch of nothing in front of her with just many poles of rock pushing out from the rock mountain. Swinging won’t work here so it’s like she’ll need to hang from the poles and keep moving. Testing her grip strength perhaps?

No. No, she has not played by any rules the dungeon seemed to want her to before now and she won’t do this either. Moving her eyes skywards she finds platforms above her, with similar challenges that she’d have to eventually get to. No. No no no.

She jumps to the first pole of many before pushing off the rock wall as she climbs up onto the pole, pulling herself onto it and starting to stand, hand pressed to the wall for balance. From her position on the top of the pole she looks at the platform above her, it seems in range of her jump if she really stretches.

With a sigh she springs up, stretching out and doing her best not to shout in pain as she grips the sharp coral. Her Health drops down to 94%. She struggles, gasping out breaths, her foot kicking and scraping against the wet rock wall, slowly but surely struggling her way onto the platform and to safety.

Of course, that’s when she notices the odd shell above her. And then there’s a sound of crunching from a platform near her. Looking over quickly she finds what seems to be an enlarged shell like the one she’d found on the second floor, the ones containing the pearls. And it had just crunched against the platform. Ah, heck.

Getting to her feet she throws herself onto the next higher up platform, avoiding being squished under the shell that drops on the platform she’d just vacated. Stupid dungeon. Horrible dungeon. She gets moving again, thanking the durability of her new sandals for helping at least in keeping her feet from damage.

Panting now, breath harder and harder to draw, she dodges an Eel, sacrifices another 3% of her health to get from a pole jump and up to the next level, then notices the gold of the ceiling is getting closer than before. This is what? The eighth rotation around the mountain? It had become slightly faster to get around so she’s probably close.

She looks at an impossible jump across from herself, checks around for a way forwards, finds none, and feels a little of the strength in her legs leave her. What now? It’s just impossible to keep moving forwards? There’s no poles, no special thing she can see. There’s just empty space!

Frustrated, she's about to give up entirely when a platform just… Appears! Then the one ahead of it, the one after that, and the fourth and final platform also appears. What did she do? And a better question, what’s the trick?

Waiting, she feels vindicated in her caution when the first platform to have appeared vanishes. Right then. So the second platform will- Yep, it vanishes, the third, then the fourth. Are they invisible? She pulls a scrap of leather from her pouch, throwing it at where the first platform had been, watching it fall straight through the space without touching anything. So they appear and reappear, the challenge being to get across in a certain timeframe. This is torture.

When the first platform appears she waits a moment for the second one to come into view before jumping across, following the pace of the appearing platforms right until the fourth when she stops herself just in time to avoid the Eel throwing itself from the hole across the large gap. Heart beating in her throat, Apple looks back just as the platform behind her vanishes. Deciding it’s now or falling, she jumps towards the Eel just as it’s pulling back, her hand slipping from its slimy skin and tearing a big red line across her wrist and palm as she tries to steady herself. Thankfully her Health tanks that hit, allowing her to keep her digits intact. The Eel pulls back and Apple stares at it retreating, wanting nothing other than to just leave now. The prize isn’t worth it. But she’s closer to the top than the bottom now. It’d be more of a hassle to head back than forwards. At least the pain of taking percentages of her Health is over pretty quickly.

The next jump is a single swing that’s easy enough, then a few longer jumps before another set of appearing platforms that she gets through easily enough. Another Eel that she glares at, then she has to climb up onto another pole, getting her way up once more at the expense of some Health.

The difference now is that she can actively see how close she is to the top. Just two more rotations and this is over.

She continues to leap across platforms, confused when there’s no hazards ahead just yet. But when she gets to what seems like the final stretch she could just give up right here and now. She spots two Eel holes, several pole jumps, and two stretches of vanishing platforms.

Just… Quack this place.

She rushes forwards, not even bothering to think, turning her mind off as she leaps from platform to platform, dodges Eels, throws herself into swings across onto appearing coral, she slows for just a second to trick the second Eel before swinging from one pole jump directly to another before landing on a platform the moment it appears. From there it seems to be a race across the platforms up to the top of this mountain. Sprinting, keeping perfect pace with the platforms appearing under her, Apple doesn’t even care if she misses at this point. It barely even matters to her until she throws herself sideways and onto the flat top of the mountain challenge.

She starts sobbing immediately, all that fear and tension hitting her at the same time, her hands shaking as her body seems to shake from some feeling unknown to her. Why? Why was she made to do this? It’s those Godsent! The Godsent that had allowed her to be thrown into the dungeon. The Godsent that had thrown her. The…

Sight blocked by tears she understands that she’s partially responsible for this specific scenario. She could have just left but she’d decided to sidetrack herself. Her pained hands, her chest aching from how difficult it is to breathe through the sobbing. These are things she’d chosen to take on. She can’t blame them. It’s her fault.

Apple isn’t even sure how long she cried there and when she finally checks her Health she laughs quietly as it currently matches her rather static Anima at 85%.

She then finds the timer, currently stopped and not moving up.

00:24:21

Is… Is that good? Still breathing heavily, Apple slowly pulls herself to sitting, looking around at the flat top of the mountain, spotting a strange arch made of coral ahead of herself and a chest similar to the ones she’d seen on each level but without the coral this time. The wood of the chest is much softer, the metal lining shows a silvery material. She widens her eyes a little as she Inspects the chest.

Prize Chest

Her prize. She’d done it. A pained laugh bubbles up inside her as she struggles to get to her feet, arms weaker than they’d ever been before. Making her way to the chest, she stops to look up at the unreachable ceiling, finding that it seems to be full of a potentially unique type of Glowmoss. She tries to Inspect it but either she’s too far away or it’s just not something she can Inspect. Looking back to the chest she has to pause again as a yawn pulls itself from her, causing her to realise how tired she really is.

Can she even keep going? She has to. There’s just one floor between her and home. If she stops to sleep she’ll wake and her situation will be worse in terms of hunger and thirst. She’s already feeling a slight pain in her stomach that is likely unrelated to her impacting the coral earlier.

The chest latch is pulled up, letting Apple push the lid of the chest up and back, watching as the chest wobbles slightly when she lets the lid fall. This chest isn’t stationary like the others? Putting that thought aside she checks the contents. The first thing that draws her eyes is a glass container of some kind, she’s barely even begun reading the name of it when she’s grabbing it and holding it like the most delicate of tonics in the world.

It’s a ‘Regen++ Potion’! She’d found something that’s akin to food!

She’s about to uncork it and drink the contents when she thinks over that. No. She shouldn’t just down the potion. She’ll get her current Health back as well as likely topping her Anima back off, but her Health will come back on its own and she doesn’t know what’s going to challenge her on the fifth floor. Hating this decision she vanishes the potion into her inventory.

Checking what else is in the chest she pulls out a strange white stick of some kind. It’s not exactly white, and not exactly a stick. It looks like several smaller sticks had sprouted from the ground, twisting and twirling around each other in a fairly straight manner, eventually coming to an end before separating into what reminds her of the boney claws of the skeleton that- She hastily pushes that memory back down. Inspect activates and almost shocks her when it ranks up to E+.

Mage Sceptre (Unaligned)

Rare

Woah! That feels like a great prize! She double checks the chest before focusing back on her new weapon. Is it a weapon? She holds the sceptre out, thinking magic thoughts, whatever they might be, and trying to get something to happen.

Nothing.

Grumbling her disappointment she checks over the Sceptre again. The panel information doesn’t change but it has to do something. It feels really sturdy, she could just use it as a bludgeoning instrument. Maybe she could put something in the grasping part of the sceptre?

She pulls a little Glowmoss, compacts it, then tries to place the ball into the Sceptre, Inspecting it quickly. The Sceptre doesn’t change so she checks the Glowmoss Ball.

Glowmoss Ball

Common (Plant, Light)

Glowing

Crafted by Apple

Well that’s… Slowly, like she’s worried the panel will get scared and hide, Apple looks back at the Glowmoss Ball. What does ‘(Plant, Light)’ mean? And where had it come from? She pulls her skills up, finds the only thing that’s changed recently is her Inspect ranking up and… Her Alchemy skill.

Her weapons don’t have anything new, she checks a piece of leather and finds a new addition next to its rarity. This time (Plant, Leather). Okay! She checks the Rock Coal, this one having (Stone, Fire). Excited, she pulls the Ruby and her eyes surely sparkle as, next to the rarity, sits (Fire, Magic).

Magic! That should work! All exhaustion temporarily forgotten she holds the Ruby near to the top of the Sceptre, it seems to be the right size too. She turns the Ruby around to find a good way to set the gemstone into the wood, eventually slipping it in and feeling a thrum of power through the creation.

Ruby Mage Sceptre (Fire)

Rare

Her shivers are back and not from a mixture of terrible emotions, this is pure joy. She stumbles to standing, does the coolest pose she can possibly imagine as she throws her arm out holding the Sceptre. And…

Nothing. She tries again. Nothing. Groaning she tries to swing upwards, side to side, she wiggles the Sceptre in circles, she tries a downwards swing and nothing happens until the weapon taps the ground, a burst of flame drying the ground for a moment and causing steam to rise from the rock floor.

Oh. Oh, yeah. She can use that even if she can’t create actual flames at the moment.

Letting her curiosity pull her, she drops her knapsack and withdraws one of the Coral Sticks, Inspecting it she finds the types next to rarity read (Rock, Life). Pardon? Life?? What does it mean Life?! The Coral is alive?? I mean surely not now she’d been using it as sticks but… What the heck! Coral is alive?

She sends a silent apology for every piece of coral she’d set her feet on before looking for any chipping or broken sections on the weapon. Finding none she throws the Moss ball she’d created up and swings at it with her sceptre, the weapon striking the ball and igniting it before the swing itself sends the flaming sphere into the wall across from her. The ball creates a small flumph of flame as it hits before falling out of sight in tatters.

Woah!

Resisting the urge to do that a few more times, Apple checks that she can separate the Ruby from the Sceptre, finding it easy enough when she concentrates on the combination and her desire to undo it. So if she finds another gem like the Ruby it could be used to create different effects. Which also has her considering if she could try and win the same prize if she comes back here. At that thought she puts the Sceptre away, glad that she’s saved an inventory slot by keeping them combined.

She does have a safer place to finish up her armour upgrades with this area. Although… She turns to the strange arch. It’s just there, not doing anything. Which is mighty suspicious. Stepping closer and past the chest, the space inside the arch shimmers and suddenly turns golden.

Brilliant. That most likely takes her back out of this room and into the dark once again. So, knowing that, she closes the chest and sits on it, pulling off her things until she has her cuirass on her lap. She pulls out several strips of leather she’d dyed previously, grabbing a knife and cutting small lines into a piece to try make it curve easier, messing up the first attempt and snapping the leather piece. Groaning at that she really wishes she had something to keep this stiffer leather down. Nails would be nice. It can be bent somewhat but not enough to shape around her shoulders.

Deciding to just not bother with this at the moment she pulls one of her Rock Coal out, wiping it over the cuirass to colour it a darker shade. She doesn’t want to waste the coal right now but she’s so close to getting out that she’s half considering it. She has to go through three of the coals to colour the entire cuirass, not breaking them or anything, just the sooty material on them is limited. She can hazard a guess that the soot is created when they’re heated for periods of time. If that’s the case she might be able to extract more from them if she heats them periodically and wipes the soot off with a cloth to transfer it to water. For a little fun branding she draws an apple outline on the front of the cuirass with her finger to wipe a little of the soot away.

Considering that done and checking with Inspect to see what happened to it- it just gained (Black) after its name -she checks her Health, finding it only having gone up a few percent. Groaning and rubbing her eyes, she hears her stomach rumble as she sits there, eyes feeling heavy. Less in a way to tell her she needs sleep, just heavy with the understanding that she can’t stop for long.

What she does do is pull out the remainder of her good sticks, a knife, some string, and her bits of stripped leather. With those she sharpens one end into a point with the knife before carefully cutting a cross shape into the other end. From there she uses the chest lid as a board to cut out two different patterns. These patterns are hopefully going to make it easier to layer the stripped leather on the end of the bolts. Her first few tries aren’t great so they’re thrown to the side. After that she finds two good shapes and sets to making several more of those. With those done she sets them in her first bolt, scooping a little glue into that segment before wrapping string around them and tightening the ends up as best she can manage.

Stretching once the first is done, she moves onto the next one, determined to get them done before she heads out. The crossbow is her only ranged weapon and she needs it viable for combat.

With the eventual count of eight bolts, she sets one into her crossbow, steps on the hook at the front and pulls the string up, locking it in place easier than she expected. Again, likely thanks to her Godsent strength. She can’t thank that enough.

She tests the weight of the crossbow in her hands, pointing it from the chest to the golden arch. She doesn’t want to waste a shot right now so she puts it away. She’d heard a chime halfway through working on the bolts that Inspect labels ‘Coral Bolts’ so she pulls her panel up once again.

Name: Apple, Piranha Friend

Health: 94%

Anima: 85%

Freelancer

| Strength