The third floor isn’t exactly a drastic change from the above two floors, the rock walls are the same as before, though now without their previous Glowmoss across the ceiling. The parts of the floor where had been pools of water on the first floor and coral shelves on the second, are strange green plants akin to the Leather Kelp but much longer, way wigglier, and somehow standing entirely upright with the absence of water.
And speaking of water, there’s none to be found. Unless you count the strange blue lighting coming from nowhere that Apple can identify. It’s like the entire tunnel is being bathed in it or the walls themselves are radiating blue. Concerning.
There’s also a sound that causes Apple a little worry for a moment. It’s gone just as she hears it and then a few seconds later it’s back. Like a… Blorp? Kind of like a noise that happened when she’d let a little air out of her mouth when she was underwater on the previous floor, but much larger. She can’t find what’s making the noise so figures that this is some sort of environmental sound like how the lighting seems to be. Interesting.
Moving quietly over to the kelp, Apple touches it, finding the texture oddly slimy. So many odd things in this dungeon. Looking up, the plant almost reaches the ceiling and… It’s just holding itself up somehow. Swaying slightly in some imperceptible wind sure, but it’s somehow keeping itself aloft. Magick? Or more likely this is dungeon logic she doesn’t understand.
Pulling a knife she holds the slimy kelp steady before cutting it carefully, nearly shouting out in shock as the kelp suddenly ceases to obey its own strange logic and comes falling down onto her with a wet series of slaps.
Ew.
Untangling herself from this new variant of kelp, Apple waits to see if it browns. A few seconds and nothing. She Inspects it and finds this version labelled as ‘Sea Kelp’.
Now, she has been keeping alert for any Sahuagin nearby during her little exploration of the flora on the third floor, but with no sounds other than the occasional Blorp reaching her ears she’d figured it safe. The tunnel once again stayed straight but this time it splits off rather quickly, one tunnel turning ninety degrees going left, the other going off to the right at an angle. So when she does hear the noises of Sahuagin feet coming her way, she only has a few moments to prepare herself for its arrival.
What’s even stranger to her than the gravity-defying kelp is that the Sahuagin comes running in from the left tunnel and continues to rush past the turn and down the angled tunnel like its life depends on it. They’d never been that fast before, so what could scare a-
Ice fills Apple’s insides as she finds out what the monster had been running from. A fish so large that it takes up most of the tunnel space it’s moving through. Similar to the Piranha, this fish has sharp teeth and a face that looks like it ran into the walls a few too many times. Unlike the small and bitey Piranha, this fish is big enough it could scoop Apple up into its perpetually open maw without needing to chew.
She has just enough presence of mind to Inspect the monster before it swims off- through the air somehow -finding that it’s labelled as a ‘Piranha Shark’. So that’s what a shark is. At least she has that question answered.
But why hadn’t it seen her? Was it too focused on chasing down the Sahuagin snack it was after or… She looks down at herself, still mostly tangled in the Sea Kelp. Or is the kelp here for a reason? More dungeon logic so that Godsent aren’t just gobbled up by the Piranha Shark?
Hoping that she’s not just grossing herself out by wrapping the kelp around her neck like a scarf, Apple starts to do what she always does when encountering something new. Gather!
This little Gather session doesn’t go on very long as she wants to get moving, only collecting a little over twenty Sea Kelp to place within her inventory. A few more get wrapped around herself in the hopes that it hides her from the massive fish, or at least make herself tastier for when she gets gobbled up by the thing. She wouldn’t want to taste bad.
Apple fights off the chuckles at that thought. She’d never laughed more than she has since she was thrown into this dungeon. It’s a lot of nervous laughter and plenty of laughter stemming from sheer confusion. But she feels almost like her time before her little adventure began was something she didn’t experience like she’s experiencing things now. Which- No. She shelves those thoughts for later, she needs to get off this floor… And…
She’d turned left and away from the direction the fish had gone, expecting to find a long tunnel or some strange otherworldly thing. What she didn’t expect is that the tunnel would lead directly to the red gate that would take her to the fourth floor. There is a tunnel that cuts off to the side and curves to the right, but the exit is right there!
Just in case, she moves through the kelp fields towards the exit, looking behind herself and down the tunnel leading to her right to check for enemies, then scoots over to the shimmering red field blocking her path. She pushes against it and, yep, it’s not letting her through.
Rushing back to the safety of the kelp, Apple tries to think over any time a Godsent had said something about big fish in the dungeon and draws a blank. Either the Godsent don’t talk much about the horrors they’ve witnessed or it’s not a notable enough threat that they’d told her about it.
Could these creatures escape the dungeon?
Apple shivers at that thought, pushing it deep deep down inside herself so that she never has to think about it ever again. The Graveyard incident was bad enough- She pushes that memory down beside the previous thought.
Okay. So she has to defeat the monsters on this floor to unlock the exit, that means she has to figure out a plan to deal with that Piranha Shark and the Sahuagin running away from it. Sure! She can do that! It’s definitely not a huge thing to ask of her!
Trying not to go a little insane, Apple continues following the left wall down the path that curves, still sticking to the kelp fields just in case something comes her way. It does feel strange that she’s now actively hunting the monsters that terrified her not half a day ago. Of course they’re all now being hunted and she’d defeated eight of them by herself, but that’s mostly attributed to her borrowed Godsent abilities and skills. She had worked a fair bit to acquire the equipment she has with her, so she can’t say that the abilities are the only reason she’s gotten this far but they definitely helped.
Continuing to follow the tunnel around, it starts to curve to the left now with no other tunnels branching from it that she can see. It feels like this floor is much larger than the previous two but somehow emptier. Probably a result of that shark eating everything that looks at it wrong. The issue for Apple is that each floor has had a new resource for her to utilise in growing her power with equipment and effects alongside her skills. This floor currently only having the one visible resource is… An issue.
Stopping her thoughts as she spots movement ahead, she moves quickly into the kelp field as another Piranha Shark swims its way towards her, much more serene than the previous one had been. This presents even more problems. There’s two of them. Well, one here and the other one. This one’s scales are different from the previous one she’d seen, more reds and oranges compared to the others greens and blues.
As the monster gets closer to where she’s hiding Apple notices movement within the kelp field she’s in. Turning her head she locks eyes with a Sahuagin crouched down like she is within the plants.
A very tense second passes before the Sahuagin reaches for its knife, stabbing out at her. Apple’s eyes widen as she manages to grab the creature’s wrist, again thanking the borrowed Godsent strength she currently possesses for allowing her to even manage that.
She wants to convey the stupidity of fighting to the fishperson in front of her but she can’t find the words to do so. The Sahuagin struggles for a moment before reaching for its other dagger with its left hand.
Apple punches it in the face, the sound almost startling her. Herself and the fishperson both turn to peer out of the kelp at the Piranha Shark to see if they’re about to be lunch. The big fish not reacting other than to keep lazily swimming by them seems to be the cue for both Apple and her opponent to continue the scrap.
The Sahuagin grabs its other knife as Apple slams its captured wrist into the wall of the tunnel, forcing it to drop the first knife even as the second is being jabbed her way. In response to this Apple pulls her shield from her inventory and onto her right arm, hissing through her teeth at the pain that still gets through the hard coral of the armour. She grabs the dropped knife, twisting it in her palm before slashing it across the Sahuagin’s knee, creating a red line and causing the Sahuagin to gurgle in pain.
They both hear the Piranha Shark flip around towards the source of the noise and Apple knows that it’s over if she’s found.
Dropping back, Apple kicks out with both feet at the chest of the Sahuagin, throwing it away from her and out of the kelp field, staying flat on the ground as the deadly fish darts over her and straight towards the Sahuagin scrambling to flee. From the noise she hears, it doesn’t get far.
Staying as still and quiet as she can, Apple hears the chime of her panel and knows that her Stealth had just ranked up to ‘E+’ without needing to check.
Controlling her breathing as best she can whilst she stays exactly where she’d fallen, Apple considers maybe she isn’t suited for the Godsent lifestyle. If this is what they have to put up with in the dungeon in her town, she can’t imagine what the ones that head off for the city are dealing with.
Once she’s pretty sure the big fish has left her alone, she rolls onto her front and pushes herself to her knees. She gives a quick check to her backpack, finding it had been a little squished by the fall but not much, everything inside is still safe. She’d kept anything likely to break inside her inventory anyway but she still felt the need to check.
Now. She needs to continue.
…
She groans quietly as she scoots herself so her back is to the wall, still hidden within the kelp field.
How can she even begin to defeat those sharks? They’re far bigger than her and that Sahuagin was devoured near as soon as it got to them. She could run away from it, she’s faster than the Sahuagin, but she’ll run out of energy sooner rather than later and when she does, if there’s no kelp fields nearby, she’s as good as walking into its open maw.
Apple looks over her coral shield, slipping it from her arm and holding it carefully in her lap. The shark isn’t large enough to get stuck in a tunnel if the height and width stay consistent. Her spear could maybe be used to do something but for the life of her she can’t figure out what.
And so she can’t formulate a plan and thus OPPAI isn’t currently helping her. Would the green eyed Godsent be disappointed in her?
> “Oh, hey, kid.” Apple hears, turning to look up at the green eyed Godsent that starts to pat her pockets. “Shoot. I didn’t-” she notices the fresh apple in Apple’s hands, “-oh. You got one already. Just checking out the stalls whilst you’re on a wander?”
>
> Apple likes that this Godsent interacts with her outside of just presenting her the treat that she loves. Even if Apple doesn’t really talk much beyond blurting out that question that bubbles to the surface of her mind when Godsent are nearby.
>
> “Always good to get some fresh air,” the Godsent continues like Apple had commented, “especially on a nice day like this. I’m going to be making more bricks by the river if you want to toddle by.”
>
> There’s a pause as the Godsent nods as if Apple had responded again.
>
> “Alright. I’ll be off then.” She says with a small wave of her hand.
>
> The green eyed Godsent is interrupted by a call of, “Think fast!” from the egg vendor that likes to throw his produce at passing Godsent. Probably why this path is devoid of more Godsent. Unfortunately for the green eyed Godsent, it seems she can’t think very fast, waving her hands ineffectually as the egg cracks against her cheek.
>
> Apple lets out a giggle, the Godsent going from playfully grumpy to bright eyed and grinning. Apple watches as she jumps a little, clicking her heels together and doing a pose like it was all a big comedy act.
>
> “There’s that laugh.” The Godsent chuckles, wiping egg yolk from her face whilst squinting at the egg vendor that had gone back to minding his stall. She smiles at Apple once clean, giving her a wink. “Keep your spirits up, kiddo. And I’ll do the same, yeah?”
No. She wouldn’t as long as Apple is still trying.
Running her hands through her hair, Apple transfers her Friendship Bracelet from her wrist to wrap her hair up into a ponytail. She’d been too stuck on the ‘Plan’ part of OPPAI, forgetting to simply Observe first and foremost. She’s got only a single portion of the tunnels down here in her mental map at the moment so there could easily be something to help her deal with the sharks. She has the heft of that new sword that could knock the fish off balance if it even can be knocked somewhat, so that’s a potential way forwards.
Trusting that she doesn’t need to constantly crouch to stay perfectly hidden in the kelp fields, Apple continues on her way down the wiggling tunnel, moving just a little faster when she’s in the open between kelp fields.
Something that catches her eye now she’s not panicking over becoming fish food, is small patches of a new type of plant at the base of some stretches of wall. Stopping at a kelp field close to one of these patches she kneels down to take a sample when she notices a gap in between the wall and floor large enough she could slip her hand inside. Not that she’s going to do that but she could if she was reckless. What she does do is peek into the small hole.
Nothing seems to be- Oh! There’s a few of the Nesting Guppy in there! That’s nice, she’d hoped to see those again and it seems like this new plant is there to partially cover up the holes. Not every collection of this plant has a nest like this but some do from what she can see. Excusing herself from the little fishes area she moves over to a portion of the plant without a home and cuts a few free from the ground. She sniffs it, confused when it smells a lot like garlic. She licks it and… Yeah it tastes like she’d expect garlic would taste; garlicky.
Muskgrass
Common
Sure. It’s something new to Gather. She gets to it, keeping an eye out for enemies as she does so, getting another chime when she’d almost collected an entire box of her inventory full of Muskgrass. That puts her Gather skill up to D rank now. She finishes filling out a single box and stops, not wanting to overharvest and really wanting more pouches or containers to keep things in. If not to save space then just to help keep some things separated for now. Jars, boxes, little tubs. She’d rule the world with enough tiny containers of stuff.
Continuing on from there as she considers once more how to create fire of some sort, she pauses as the tunnel splits off to the right, the path going straight ahead thinning quickly like someone had tied a rope around the outside of the tunnel and pulled. There’s room for her to step through but not so for the Piranha Sharks to do the same. Not that they have feet for stepping.
So a safer area than what she’s currently in? Potentially but that tunnel goes left after the strange rock formation so she can’t see what’s ahead. Either way it’s better than staying in one spot so she climbs over the rocks and into the safer tunnel.
Peeking around the corner tells her she thought that way too soon. This specific passage leads into a small cove with three Sahuagin sitting around a small pile of glowing rocks. So relatively safer. If she ignores the three monsters all with knives.
Only knives?
She checks around them, finding that they have no spears nearby or other sorts of weapons. So she has the clear reach advantage over them but they have the numbers. If she can pull them into the tunnel she might have either a better time taking on one or two at a time or they’ll just rush her and hold her down.
Turning to leave this decision for later, Apple lets out a shout of fear as a Piranha Shark is staring at her through the hole she’d just climbed in.
Mentally kicking herself she checks the big fish can’t get to her before turning once more to face the three opponents she’ll be going against because of that scare.
With no time to decide on what weapon to go with, she pulls out the sword from her inventory, her shield vanishing to replace it. The sword has more weight to it but with two hands she should be able to control it.
Entering the cave to find the Sahuagin have already gotten to their feet and are pulling knives, Apple gets a feel for the weight of this new weapon, thinking over how the Sahuagin she’d taken it from had held onto the bottom of the blade itself to move the weight of the weapon around.
The first two Sahuagin charge her, the third (the one in the middle) throws one of its knives at her.
Apple ducks under the throw, moving forwards to meet the challenge so she’s not being pushed back. Her first attack has her bring the pommel of the sword up, smashing it into the jaw of the Sahuagin on her right before pushing the blade into the neck of the one on her left. Bringing the hand she has on the blade to the grip she swings in a sweeping strike from left to right, catching both of the Sahuagin across their bellies.
With those two stumbling away from her she pushes past them, keeping low to minimise the chances of being hit from flying knives before straightening up, bringing the sword up with both hands in a diagonal cut across the front of the third Sahuagin, watching as a large red mark appears the entire length of its torso.
A stabbing pain in her right shoulder comes just as she realises she’d stood still a little too long, her right elbow is brought up behind her, finding the face of a Sahuagin and making a happy little crunching noise. Realising this means the Sahuagin on her left has probably recovered as well she pivots, twirling to her right and avoiding a second stab and allowing her to spin the entire weight of her sword through the Sahuagin that had stabbed her, turning it into so much mist and a Sahuagin Core.
That swipe has her stumbling towards the monster that had missed her, just managing to get her footing and springing up towards it, vanishing her sword as she pulls a knife of her own in each hand, sinking those into the Sahuagin and dropping to the ground as it also turns to mist below her. That hurts her knees a little but it’s a passing pain.
Gurgling from behind her comes at the same time she lets out a breath. She rolls to her right, coming up having turned during the roll to face the empty handed monster. She hears the knife throw she’d just avoided hitting the ground, the weapon making skittering noises across the rock floor as the monster sizes her up.
For just a moment, Apple really wants to mimic the way it’s balling its fists to prepare for a contest of fists. But reason gets the better of her as she pulls a spear from her inventory. She catches the Sahuagin’s charge with a slash of her spear and a jab when it pulls its head back just in time, the jab creating a red mark in its side. She follows it back, stabbing and swiping at it as it backs up.
When it inevitably bumps into the wall she sinks the tip of her spear into it and watches as the monster becomes mist.
Spinning she looks for more foes, finding nothing she lets her spear return to her inventory, also allowing herself to start breathing a little heavier. How had she done that time?
Name: Apple
Health: 87%
Anima: 85%
Freelancer
| Strength
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Agility
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Vitality
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Intellect
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Mind
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
Skills
| Gather
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: D )
| Inspect
| ◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E )
| Stealth
| ◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E+ )
| Steal
| ◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: F+ )
| First-Aid
| ◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E- )
| Fish
| ◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: F+ )
Craft
| Tailor
| ◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E )
| Specialisation: Leather
Blinking at her summoned panel, Apple is sure that she’s looking at something wrong here. She’d been hurt by the blocked hit from the earlier scrap, and been stabbed in her back, but… Is she improving? It feels like a rapid rate of progression if she is and most of her damage is definitely attributed to the weight of that sword, but is she actually getting better at this?
It’s not progress she can see on her panel but it feels like notable progress to her. If this is how Godsent learn, with their ability to come back from death, they must be closer to actual Gods than what she’d ever thought before.
> Apple is watching a Godsent that’s standing just outside the town border, she’s pulling back the string of a hunting bow that Apple had watched her try to haggle down to way below its price earlier.
>
> The Godsent is targeting a tree the other Godsent with her had marked out, all of them attempting to see who can hit closest to a knife stuck into the bark.
>
> Her father warns one of the Godsent that get close that there are monsters in the dungeon and gets waved off.
>
> The female Godsent had been lining up her shot for a while, her arm pulling the string back starting to wobble. When she does finally let the arrow fly- off into the woods somewhere -the Godsent squeals in pain, holding her chest and stamping the floor in pain whilst her friends burst out in laughter.
>
> “My QUACKing QUACK!” The Godsent shouts, spinning on the spot as she stamps out the pain. “Why is that coded into the game?”
Apple grins to herself at the memory. Okay. Maybe Godsent aren’t on the level she was just about to place them. Not all anyway.
Looking around at her spoils, Apple spots the two daggers she’d dropped in her defeat of the second Sahuagin next to its core. Rolling her arm to ease the slight pain in her shoulder, she heads to each core, placing them with the rest for a total of eleven cores acquired but twelve Sahuagin defeated. Will the core drop when she defeats the Piranha Shark that had eaten it? That has her smile once more whilst she moves to the small pile of glowing rocks.
The rocks aren’t uniform, several looked cracked and chipped in places, their surface mostly black with a red glow to them turning parts yellow and orange. She touches at the rocks, pulling her hand back a few times as she gauges their temperature. Finally she picks one up and watches as the heat fades.
Rock Coal
Common
Turning the coal over in her hand she notes how it leaves a sooty residue on her palm. That’s interesting at least. She could maybe dye some of her leather black with this somehow but she can’t see why it was so warm a moment ago.
Grabbing and storing each of the Rock Coals away in her inventory, Apple finds a strange hot sphere similar to the cores but with more angles like it had been cut or sanded down. The item itself is hot to the touch but not scalding. Picking it up and tossing it between her hands to stop them burning, Apple Inspects it quickly.
Ruby
Rare
Fire Affinity
What could that even mean? Is the Fire Affinity what’s making the Ruby so hot? And better yet, does this mean she could use this to create an actual fire? Instead of just standing there and asking herself silly questions, Apple sets the Ruby back down as she sits, pulling her knapsack around to get at the sticks stored within.
In under a minute she’s snapping several sticks into smaller sticks and then those small sticks into even smaller sticks. She considers snapping those sticks even further but she’s not so full of hubris that she’d try to create infinite sticks. They get placed over the Ruby in an upside down cone shape as she scoots a little closer for warmth. Her cotton clothes had been drenched rather recently so anything to help dry them faster is appreciated.
Unfortunately even after several minutes go by, the sticks don’t even start to smoke slightly. So the heat doesn’t transfer to the wood (can she call it wood if it came from a weird type of coral?) but it does transfer to the coal. So what’s special about the coals exactly?
Out comes one of those, Apple turning it over and trying to see if Inspect gives her anything else. It just gives her the name and rarity of the item. She checks the stick and realises she’d never actually used Inspect on the sticks specifically.
Coral Stick
Common
Okay, so that’s a new one. It’s interesting that they’re still defined as ‘Coral’ Sticks and not just the latter. So they’re a rock then? Wait, are Corals rocks? She’d thought they were plants at first given how they grow but now this is showing her that’s potentially not true.
Allowing her worldview to be absolutely shattered for a moment, Apple throws the broken sticks into her knapsack with the rest and then picks up the Ruby, placing it within her inventory.
Within her last square of her inventory.
Focusing on that now, Apple checks off the items within her inventory that she hasn’t yet, or can’t, place into her knapsack or belt pouch.
She has three knives, the apple seeds, the glue, the fifty Glowmoss, two spears, her leather shield, the Sahuagin Cores, twenty-one Piranha, a handful of both sticky and dry kelp alongside the scraped versions, the sea kelp and Muskgrass, the pretty shells, the rock coal, and her sword. Including the ruby her inventory has filled up.
In her knapsack she has the sticks, her knitting needles, the shark teeth from the first chest, her assortment of coloured strings and thread, she’d left her destroyed bracer on the last floor and-
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…She’d forgotten her second net again at the end of the second floor…
The next Sahuagin she meets is getting the easiest kill of its life. She’s just going to fall right on its blade. How could she forget the net twice?! It’s such a useful tool and weapon, it had literally been instrumental in dealing with the empowered Sahuagin!
Okay. So she’s forgetful, she adds that to a short list of the new traits she has that her adventure is just now teaching her she possesses.
Fine.
She transfers the pearls to her belt pouch, a single knife goes into her backpack for general use instead of as a weapon. She can add a strap for that later. The Glowmoss she… Can’t really carry that much with her. There’s a bit of it in her knapsack but she’s mentally assigned that to be the bits she’ll turn into more thread later. All of the dry kelp gets brought out of the inventory and into her knapsack, the pretty shells too, placing them over the moss to quiet any sounds they might make. She leaves the coals in for later and… That frees up only four inventory spaces.
How do Godsent get anything done?
Okay, bad question, she doubts many Godsent are running around with an inventory full of random plants, rocks, and pretty things they find, but twenty spaces is- No, any space that lets her store things somewhere is something to be thankful for.
So, four spaces left, maybe two and a half floors remain. She’s doomed.
Four isn’t a huge number but it’s also a full twenty percent of her inventory. Twenty is bigger than four, so that’s what she’ll be going with for now, if only to make herself feel better about her clear issue with just not picking stuff up that she finds. Is this feeling something Godsent experience? Surely not.
With her inventory issues dealt with, Apple thinks over her mental map of the area. She’d turned left, found the exit, turned right, dealt with this offshoot, she could keep following the wiggling tunnel or backtrack to the start of the floor and head down the tunnel that would lead her…
She walks over to the exit of this particular cave, stepping over the peculiar rock formation after checking the Piranha Shark had wiggled away, then makes her way down the wiggly tunnel. Backtracking would be inefficient, take too long, and put her at more risk of running into the big fish.
The wiggly tunnel continues and it’s not long before Apple starts to figure that it’s circling around on itself. She does come to a turn that she takes, given she’d elected to follow the left-hand wall until such a time that doesn’t help her. However, this tunnel just leads to a dead end. She frowns at that. Dead ends have already taught her that there would at least be something of use, but not this time.
Backtracking a little and getting back to following the wiggly tunnel, she’s about to leave a patch of coral field when she notices another one of those tightenings of the tunnel and a Sahuagin with a new kind of spear guarding it. The spear itself is of a similar design to the ones she’d seen throughout this dungeon but, instead of a singular shark fang at the tip there are five, all stuck around the first fang. She figured that just sticking more pointy bits onto a weapon wouldn’t do much, but clearly she was wrong.
A little part of her fuelled by her low ranked Steal skill wants that spear. It reasons with the part of her that just had an issue with collecting too much of everything, the specific reasoning being that she could simply swap it for one of the spears with fewer pointy bits. And, annoyingly to the part of her making up conversations between pretend parts of her own personality, it’s making a good point. The part of her that likes a good joke laughs at that wording.
She really has gone mad. It didn’t take that long.
The Sahuagin with the special spear doesn’t turn around at all, just watching and waiting for any other Sahuagin like itself or a big fish. Which does turn up whilst Apple is hiding in a kelp field. It swims lazily past the two of them, the Sahuagin tensing slightly and holding its spear with both hands for a moment before relaxing once more.
Right. The Sahuagin on this floor have no water to make themselves stronger, that alone is something Apple is thanking the creator of this dungeon for. Whoever they might be. But they’re in an enclosed space that would be difficult for her to approach, let alone attack over. All they’d have to do is back up and she’s a sitting duck.
This would be so much simpler if she just had her net!!
Frustrated but calming herself, Apple continues to observe for a moment before making a plan. She just has to use projectiles to her advantage once more. She can throw a spear, pull the next from her inventory, throw that spear, then try the same with her knives. If she deals enough damage, fast enough, then she should be able to take the Sahuagin out and get into that tunnel it’s guarding before any sharks pass by.
Okay.
She pulls a spear from her inventory, sets her feet apart a little to keep herself balanced, and does her best to keep her aim true.
She propels the spear through the space between her and her target as she lets out a breath, the kelp seemingly parting to allow this one single strike to start this encounter. Her aim was for centre mass but she’d released her throw a little early, the weapon sailing directly into the Sahuagin’s face as Apple feels a white flash more than sees it when the weapon connects with flesh.
And then the spear drops to the ground a little ways behind the cloud of mist as a chime rings through her mind.
What? No, what?
Too stunned to rush for the entrance, Apple is reminded of the time that Sahuagin had thrown a projectile at her with the strange spinny piece of cloth and how she’d seen white. Was that…
She looks down at the Shark Fang Necklace and it’s strange wording. Could this be responsible? The other Sahuagin had been wearing one when it had struck her.
Pulling herself together Apple moves from her hiding place as she pulls up her panel, finding that Stealth had ranked up once again. That’s strange, it had ranked up rather recently, it feels much too quick to gain another so soon. Could the strange white flash also have affected that somehow? Is it telling her that attacking from a hidden location is stronger than otherwise? Of course, it is like that but is the panel rewarding her for doing so is her question.
She hops into the tunnel, grabs her spear and the Sahuagin Core, then realises that the five-pronged spear the Sahuagin had been holding turned to mist with it. She silently curses herself but understands that collecting everything is clearly not possible without allies.
Moving slowly through the tunnel, the spear put away for now, Apple finds it split evenly both left and right. These tunnels seem to lead up and down respectively. Taking a look up the left path she notes slight movement from what she can see, down the right leads to a flooded cave with very clear water and more small Piranha. A food source perhaps?
Back to the left she watches the tops of heads moving a little. Apple crouches low, creeping slowly up the incline and very slowly peeks to get a better view. Seven Sahuagin are all milling around a strange bowl in the centre of the cave, occasionally stabbing their spears into the bowl and pulling out a wriggling Piranha from within before biting into them.
She can’t take seven Sahuagin in a fight this uneven. She backs away from that rise and back down to the entrance of the little tunnel. So they just have a room full of fish for eating? They also had a small area for them to rest at for some reason. The Sahuagin fleeing the first Piranha Shark she’d seen could have been either leading it away from its friends or just rushing back to the feeding cave.
Checking both ways before she exits the tunnel, Apple hops out and heads to a patch of kelp just as one of the Piranha Shark turns the corner, swimming its way down the tunnel.
What’s the purpose of the Piranha Sharks? She’d only seen two of them so far; the same ones each time. She still has a small area of the floor to check out but she really hopes things are explained a little clearer soon. Once the shark passes she heads the way it came, making her way around the wiggley tunnel until she can see a turn off and the direction she understands to be back to the start with how suddenly straight the path looks. That would be the other side of the diagonal tunnel.
Peering into the offshoot she nearly bolts away as she spots the other Piranha Shark. It’s swimming slowly around a large cave. There’s a patch of solid ground just in the centre of the room but the rest dips down into a lot of large pools of that clear water she’d seen before. This time there are no Piranha inside.
It clicks.
The Piranha Shark aren’t the enemies here! Well, they potentially wouldn’t pass up snacking on her, but probably not from cruelty but just because she’s fairly small to them. The Sahuagin stole the Piranha’s children! They’re not just different coloured Piranha Sharks, they’re parents! And Apple is quite sure that her own parents are worried about her right now.
But what can she do about that?
Apple grins as a plan forms in her mind. If it works out she’ll not have to fight all seven of those Sahuagin. Just the survivors.
Backtracking once more all the way back to the entrance of the tunnel leading to the Sahuagin and the trapped Piranha, Apple pulls her sword from her inventory, holding it backwards carefully so that she doesn’t cut herself. To make doubly sure she doesn’t hurt herself she pulls out two strips of leather to protect her fingers. She waits until the other Piranha Shark takes its turn to start circling the long looping tunnel, letting it pass by her and counting to ten once it’s out of sight. Then she rushes forwards, slamming the handle of her sword into part of the rock wall stopping the Piranha Shark getting inside. She’s rewarded with a loud crack noise and part of the wall breaking off. She hits it again to the side, then a third time, a fourth, and manages to smash a fifth part of the opening down before she hears running webbed feet.
Apple ducks away from the entrance, passing through several fields of kelp to keep herself hidden as the Sahuagin rush to see what’s going on.
When the other shark comes to investigate as well they gurgle in fear and Apple hears retreating feet this time. They can’t come out to get her, and as long as she times this right, that entrance is being opened for the sharks.
Once the coast is clear she runs out again, slams her makeshift hammer into more parts of the wall and repeats her hiding strategy once more.
The third time she comes to do this the entrance is almost wide enough to break with a couple swings but, in her haste, she’d not waited long enough for the Piranha Sharks to leave, coming almost face to face with one.
Time seems to freeze as Apple stares in the maw of the creature, the teeth up close seem to be the exact ones on the Sahuagin spears and knives. So when they do manage to defeat one of these they use its teeth to make their weapons? She’d call it barbaric but it’s definitely what she’d do if that’s all she had for a weapon. Now. Why isn’t it eating her yet?
Looking into the eyes of the creature, she notices them flicking between her and the nearly broken wall. She turns and finds the other shark had come up behind her. Licking her very dry lips, Apple raises her sword… And slams the handle into the nearly broken wall once, then twice, throwing herself to the wall as both the Piranha Shark burst past her and into the tunnel.
She hears plenty of noises she’ll repress later coming from within, even manages to catch one of the fleeing Sahuagin by surprise, defeating it easily by slamming the pommel of her sword into its stomach and then bringing it up to knock it off its feet with another pommel strike to the jaw.
When the noises stop, Apple watches as one shark comes swimming out of that tunnel, mouth full of that clear water, little Piranha swimming happily within. It swims off to its home as the other shark makes its appearance.
Taking a chance, Apple steps out of the kelp field, the shark noticing her and pausing. It observes her as she observes it. The shark then leans forward, letting six Sahuagin Cores drop from its maw to match the one on the ground she had yet to pick up.
A sudden chime goes off, a different tone than the other one, then the shark swims away.
Apple raises her eyes at that as she hears the sounds of rocks falling from behind her in the direction of the dead end she’d found.
First she checks what that noise in her mind is trying to tell her.
Achievement Unlocked
Piranha Friend
Creatures with ‘Piranha’ in their name are friendly unless attacked and won’t go into a feeding frenzy around you unless your Health is below 50%.
She now feels a little bad about the twenty-one Piranha in her inventory. But that’s extremely interesting! Collecting the dropped cores she finds that she now has twenty of those in total. After that she moves into the place the Sahuagin had just been gobbled up, walking over to check what exactly is in that large bowl the monsters had been eating from.
She hadn’t expected it to just be a clean green cauldron of sorts with several stone bowls inside. How they collected all of the Piranha is beyond her, but bowls are nice to have if she… She hesitates to take the bowls. Does she really need bowls?
Yes. She grabs those, stacking them up to six in her inventory and then trying to do the same with the larger bowl, her inventory labelling it as an ‘Oxidised Copper Cauldon’. She’s just checking them out. She’s not collecting everything that will go into her inventory. She’s definitely not exiting that section of the tunnel with them still in her inventory. She’s not. She is.
But hey, something broke back down the dead end, so she can check that out as the last thing to do on this floor and, if she still doesn’t need her new items she can just leave them here. Which she definitely will do.
The tunnel to the dead end is a little dusty, she can see parts of the wall at the end of the short tunnel have broken, large chunks of rock showing a well lit room behind. Peeking over the rubble, Apple's eyes widen. The layout of the hidden cave is similar to the home of the Piranha Shark, a small patch of solid ground in the centre surrounded by large pools of water. Unlike the other cave, this one is lit by Glowmoss on the ceiling instead of the strange blue light coming from nowhere. The water is filled with Leather Kelp, pretty shells, and plenty of Nesting Guppy!
Happy to have found another source of Leather Kelp she almost misses the large coral chest in the centre of the room. It seems much less important than the resources she could gather here.
Pulling herself away from waving at the Nesting Guppy, Apple moves to open the chest. Her hope for a third net is popped when this chest only holds a single item.
Coral Crossbow
Uncommon
The panel is about as obvious as it can get. Picking the crossbow up to inspect it, Apple notes how each separate part of the contraption is created using various types and colours of coral she’d seen, as well as bits of metal coated in a layer of rust. The string of the crossbow is very similar to the string she’d harvested before but this time strangely elastic. It looks almost nothing like the crossbow her father has but it’s similar enough that she understands how she might use it.
Problem. No bolts. So currently not helpful but she pops it into her inventory anyway. Being in this room has given her plenty of ideas for how to improve on what she already has. Her armour for one. It’s not up to the quality and effort she’d put into her knapsack. All she’d really done is wrap Leather Kelp around her limbs, no wonder it barely felt like it was protecting her.
Checking her Tailoring skill and giving a little shrug, Apple slides her knapsack off, setting it down next to the chest before starting to take her old armour off after unwrapping the Sea Kelp from her neck. Her chest piece is a little better than the other pieces but even that needs a bit of an upgrade and additions. It doesn’t protect her shoulders and is a little stiff in places given how she’d just stuck two bits of flat leather together with straps.
Licking her lips as she does, Apple realises how thirsty she is. That’s rather easily solved given she’s surrounded by water but for the moment she throws her old bracer and greaves into the chest, grabs the Ruby and Rock Coals, setting up a similar formation the Sahuagin had before she’d stolen these from them. That should keep her warm for now.
One of the stone bowls comes out of her inventory to collect a little water to sip on as she contemplates how best to design the new armour.
As soon as she drinks some of the water she starts to cough and splutter, spitting the water back out and watching as the coals steam when the water makes contact with them. That tastes disgusting!
Right. So maybe don’t drink nasty dungeon water. But where would she even get clean water from? It’s not like there’s a well nearby that she could draw from. Not that she ever had. That’s just something she knows happens. But it’s still strange to have nasty water here of all places.
Thinking over this problem, Apple looks at the spluttering coals as they warm up to that orange glow. Does the coal have more of a use than just making the room warmer?
Pulling the cauldron from her inventory she marvels once more at how her borrowed Godsent abilities allow her to lift something this heavy. She grabs a few rocks from the entrance of the cave and uses those to elevate the cauldron off the ground. With that done she transfers her coal and Ruby underneath the cauldron. Her working theory is that the Sahuagin had created that clear water with the use of the cauldron.
She scoops several bowls of water into the heating pot and gets to harvesting more Leather Kelp. These kelp she transfers out of the water and onto flat ground, making sure they’re perfectly straight for later use. Doing this for a while, layering them over each other when they’re dry so they don’t stick, nets her a fair amount of leather from just one patch of kelp.
Drying her hands by the heated coal is pleasant and once they’re free of moisture she grabs one of the coals and a bowl. She’s willing to sacrifice a single Rock Coal for what she hopes is possible. Sitting with her legs out, Apple sets the bowl down, places the coal into it and holds it with one hand. Her other hand picks up a nice bashing rock from the wall collapse. Crushing the coal down into powder doesn’t take her too long and half fills the bowl with what Inspect tells her is simply ‘Rock Coal Powder’. Grabbing a free bowl she scoops up some of the warm water from the cauldron, pouring it carefully into the coal powder, stirring the mixture with a small stick.
After a few minutes the mixture seems about as mixed as it might get so she grabs a strip of leather from the organised pile, pouring just a little onto it and using a scrap of stripped leather to wipe it down to coat one side of the test strip. That strip goes near the warm rocks to dry as she grabs her needle she’d poked through her backpack to keep it safe, threading in some of her yellow coral string she pauses before looking back at her little experiment. If that works then she can darken the leather to help with staying hidden, but if she goes with bright stitching that result may be lost.
But this means she needs to ‘sacrifice’ one of her coloured string spools to do so… She has green, yellow, pink, blue, and orange. She likes pink and really wants to save it if she can, the yellow is clearly next best up. Green and blue could be used for little colourful patterns. And orange… She sighs. Her poor orange string. At least it will be a better colour in its next life.
She takes that spool out and sets it in the dye mixture, rolling it around a few times to properly coat the materials before also transferring it over by the heat source.
Which gives her nothing else to do other than getting more of the leather dyed. She starts on that, finding it doesn’t take too long to get a good amount of the pile she’d created dyed before the dye itself runs a little low. Once she’s sure the darkened leather looks okay, she pulls her knapsack closer, removing things from inside so she can get it a little more organised.
First she glues two pieces of leather together, setting them into the knapsack to partition parts of it so the sticks don’t fall over when stored in there. She puts her old bowl of glue into the chest to leave behind whilst she harvests some new glue and scraped leather, placing the glue into one of the stone bowls to replace the old one. With those and a little more thread she creates a strap on the opposite side of the pouch, slotting the knife from inside her pack into it.
She checks over the backpack, locating those spots she’d found to have a bit much glue or bad stitching. Using her knife she cuts through the glue and stitching, going slower to repair these portions in hopes her knapsack goes up in rarity somehow when she’s eventually done. A double check finds part of her pouch’s stitching had torn somewhat. She had filled it up with the spools so she knows why it happened but it does hurt her heart a little at her poor creation already falling to pieces. She stitches that back up and moves one of the spools out of that pouch for now.
With the remainder of the black dye she starts to wipe it over the backpack, staining the leather and the stitching as she goes. It won’t be as well done as dyeing the leather and string beforehand, but she’s not going to abandon her first knapsack so soon for a new one. That uses up the rest of her dye and she really doesn’t want to waste another Rock Coal for more.
When she sets that down she hears a chime from her panel, pulling it up to find she’d finally ranked up in Tailor once more, bringing her up to E+. Her knapsack's rarity hadn’t changed but it definitely looks improved from before.
Checking on the string, the orange has pretty quickly turned black, bringing another smile to her face. The leather had only darkened several shades but the string had changed colour completely. With that success under her belt, Apple pulls over several pieces of the darkened leather and her new black string alongside her bowl of glue. She adds a little more water to the stained bowl, stirring that around until she gets a more inky texture rather than the previous dye. With that and a stick she marks out measurements of her right arm on several pieces of leather before cutting them up. Instead of directly glueing them together she shaves sections of the strips off to allow the leather to bend slightly without ripping so that it can actually fit around her arm. This time the bracers are a larger portion of leather with a strap to keep it in place, not really needing parts of her protecting that will rarely be hit.
Once the glue sets she sews them together to make sure they stay there and double checks to see it still fits before starting on rounding out the edges and attaching the straps of stripped leather. A triple check once that’s sewed in, a slight adjustment to one strap, then her new bracers sits proudly on her arm.
Shoddy Leather Bracer (Black)
Uncommon
Crafted by Apple
Still shoddy? Her backpack had been shoddy before too. Does the way she creates them change the modifier before it or does her Skill do that? She’s got a quarter of the skill filled out, but she also has that specialisation. This calls for experimenting.
Grabbing her knitting needles and the Glowmoss Thread she gets to work starting on a quick handkerchief. Those she’d seen her mother do a hundred times so can easily get into the flow for that. It takes her longer than she expected and she’d rushed it a little as she also had to make some more of the thread, but holding up the glowing square of fabric she cuts the last thread and hits it with an Inspect.
Shoddy Glowmoss Handkerchief
Common
Crafted by Apple
Common?? Why is this Common but her new bracer is Uncommon? What’s the logic here? It’s still Shoddy, so maybe that’s her E+ rank coming in to affect that, but… Okay, so her specialisation increases the rarity somewhat but doesn’t affect the quality? This is so confusing.
Rolling her eyes at her panel, she pulls the five apple seeds from her inventory, places them within the handkerchief, folds it up and wraps a little of the glowing thread around that before placing it gently into the pouch tied to her belt. Those are still very important to her and she’s not sure why right now.
With another inventory square freed up she gets back to working on her new armour. She has a right bracer, doesn’t really need a left bracer all the time so can leave that out. Her legs need a little more protecting other than just greaves so she gets to that, wanting all of this done before she heads off to the fourth floor.
Creating a new set of greaves in the same vein of her new bracer, she reasons the back of her legs only need protecting if she ever has her back to her enemy. Which sounds like a dumb idea. She ignores that she’d let that happen on this floor. So she lines those up properly, cuts them into correct angles, gets straps figured out, stitches everything up, then doesn’t stop there. She measures out her upper thighs, creating a single strapped version of the greaves for that, taking time to again make sure she has her full range of movement before continuing. Once those are done she takes more leather, shaping it meticulously so it cups her knees and stays where she’d glued it in. With these pieces she sews leather straps connecting the greaves to the knee and the thigh section of her armour. She checks one of those with Inspect and finds them labelled as ‘Cuisses’. So now she knows a new word for thigh armour.
With those sewn together she stands, sliding them on and really thanking herself for only putting a single strap on the cuisses given how tricky they are to get on. Once on she stretches out her legs, hops a few times, moves into a crouched stance to feel how they affect that. It seems she’d done well. The panel that Inspect brings up calls them ‘Shoddy Leather Leg Protector’.
Apple stretches her fingers out a few times to try and clear away the stiffness they’d acquired with all this delicate work. She still has to improve her chest armour with shoulder pads but she takes a moment to rest.
A small thought appears to tell her she’s just wasting time doing this and that it’s not worth it when she can just rush through the enemies, using all the new weapons she’d found to guarantee a win. That part of her she labels ‘Reckless’ and ‘Stupid’. No matter how good she gets, a single well placed strike could probably take her out. She’s borrowing Godsent powers, not a Godsent herself. If she dies, she’s gone. And she wants to see her parents again.
Apple curls up, back to one of the pools, and lets herself cry. It feels like this is the first time in her life she’d cried over anything that wasn’t something that scared her. This feels like a type of fear but there’s something else to it. She misses her family, she misses walking around her town and watching the people go about their business. She misses the silly Godsent and the serious ones. She misses their gifts of her favourite treat and she misses just existing in peace.
Sniffling and letting her tears continue to flow, Apple is sure her mind is trying to tell her something but she really doesn’t want to think of anything complicated right now.
Unsure how long she sits there and allows herself to cry, she’s a little shocked when a chime rings in her mind. If she got a ‘Cry’ skill… Apple laughs weakly. That would be funny.
She checks her panel.
Name: Apple, Piranha Friend
Health: 100%
Anima: 85%
Freelancer
| Strength
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Agility
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Vitality
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Intellect
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
| Mind
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: C )
Skills
| Gather
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: D )
| Inspect
| ◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E )
| Stealth
| ◼◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: D- )
| Steal
| ◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: F+ )
| First-Aid
| ◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E- )
| Fish
| ◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: F+ )
Craft
| Tailor
| ◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: E+ )
| Specialisation: Leather
| Alchemy
| ◼◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻◻ ( Rank: F )
She sits up straighter, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Alchemy? That’s a new word for her- No, it’s not.
> “Seriously, how do you even get some of these skills people are saying they have?” A frustrated Godsent asks the Godsent next to them. This Godsent is huge. At least three times her own height. Woah.
>
> “Have you tried just doing stuff?” The massive Godsent asks.
>
> “Yes, but how do you get magic?” The first Godsent counters.
>
> “I don’t know that one. What else?”
>
> “Potions. How do we make Potions?” The first Godsent asks quickly, sounding somehow greedy. Potions must be special.
>
> “Alchemy,” the large Godsent answers rather simply before sounding like they’re reading something out, “the medieval forerunner of chemistry, concerned with the transmutation of matter.”
>
> The annoyed Godsent becomes the confused Godsent, brows knitting together as they look up at the larger man. “Did you swallow a dictionary or something?”
>
> A pause.
>
> “Yes.” Answers the tall man.
Transmutation of matter… What matter has she transmused? Transmuted? Transmutated?? Changed. What matter had she changed?
She starts to look around, looking over the collection of leathers she has out, checking the Rock Coals, then goes through her bag to see if anything had changed. Nothing. So what had she done?
As a last resort she checks the water she’d placed within the cauldron, shocked to find the water itself had all boiled away, leaving behind a layer of some sort of white crystals on the bottom of the cauldron. She grabs a couple strips of leather, using them to pick up the cauldron and move it from the Rock Coal she’d been using to hear it up. She’d entirely forgotten the water in her crafting frenzy.
Pulling a knife she starts scraping at the substance when the cauldron is cool enough. Scooping it all up into a bowl once she’s done with that, Apple Inspects the crystals and finds… Salt! She’d somehow, accidentally, turned the water in the cave into salt. Is that why the water tasted so gross?
Issue with this finding, she has no idea how to capture the water she’d let boil away. So, no drinking water for her and she really doesn’t want to drink water that Piranha and Sahuagin have been in. That voice she’d labelled ‘Reckless’ and ‘Stupid’ pipes up once again, this time telling her that’s on a timer now. She’s getting hungrier every second and her thirst is only going to get worse. So what’s there to do other than rush?
Feeling a little panic build up, Apple pushes it down as much as she can. Just because she hasn’t found proper food doesn’t mean she’s going to die from it. It’s just not going to be very pleasant for the last two floors. Thirst is the slight issue but she’ll probably find clean water on the next floor, if not the one after.
Deciding to ignore the tiny ball of panic in her mind she gets to packing things away, storing the salt in her knapsack by wrapping some of the Sea Kelp that she’d left near the coals around the bowl. The heat seems to have taken out a bit of the water content of that kelp, taking away the rubbery feel of it and just leaving malleable material behind. She tries a quick nibble of one piece, not exactly finding it tasty but not minding that it doesn’t give her the effect the apple had. See? She has a sort of food source. Random plants!
Shaking her head at herself, Apple throws her singular bracer on, puts the cauldron and bowls into her inventory, gets to the crossbow and pauses. She should make some bolts for this but she should get moving. Resolving to do that on the next floor when she has time, she checks her inventory and flinches inwardly.
She checks through everything on her, moving things around and throwing out her old leather shield. Things get moved, the Piranha in her inventory and the shells are left behind, she rearranges her inventory to put her weapons in specific spots, fills out the sticky kelp in her inventory up to maximum one square can hold, gets every piece of darkened and scraped leather she can into her knapsack, the cores are in her inventory, the pearls in her knapsack, Rock Coal and the special ruby in her inventory…
When she feels like she has everything she can’t abandon sorted, she checks the amount of space she has left.
Six. That’s as good as it’s going to get. She does have two knives in her inventory, two on her belt, and one on her knapsack, but she reasons the ones in her inventory are for a faster swapping between weapons. The ones on her belt could be useful but right now she’s not going to try and replace them with anything.
And so, that feels like she’s prepped for moving on to the next floor.
Her preparation complete, she gives the Nesting Guppy within the waters a sad goodbye wave, then departs, leaving behind a bit of a mess within that chest, hoping it doesn’t get converted into items for Godsent, that would be pretty disappointing for them.
Passing by the Piranha Shark nest she pops her head in, giving them a wave as they spot her, swearing their fins return the motion somewhat as she’s leaving. She lightly jogs her way over towards the blue exit across from her, happy she didn’t have to fight the sharks to get out of here and feeling a little more accomplished than before. Is she ready for what’s to come? Maybe not, but she can never be sure something unexpected won’t pop up. So is she prepared enough? Yeah, probably. Maybe. She rolls her eyes at her hesitation and steps through the blue panel, into the fourth floor.